Author:
James Hartley School of Psychology, Keele University, Staffordshire, UK

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Abstract

Author self-citations are another factor that affects the impact factor of a journal. Typically these self-citations are just counted as such. But to be more meaningful I suggest that when examining the contribution of authors’ self-citations to impact factors one should first count the number of citations in the text rather than in the reference list, and then discriminate between different kinds of author self-citations—from those that are informative to those that are self-enhancing—if these data are to be more credible.

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  • Anseel, F, Duyck, W W De Baene Brysbaert, M 2004 Journal impact factors and self-citations: Implications for psychology journals. American Psychologist 59 1 4951 .

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  • Brysbaert, M, Smyth, S 2011 Self-enhancement in scientific research: The self-citation bias. Psychologica Belgica 51 2 127129.

  • Falgas, M. E., & Kavvadia, P. (2006). “Eigenlob”: Self-citation in biomedical journals. FASEB Journal, 20, 10391042 (cited by Brysbaert and Smyth 2011).

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  • Glanzel, W, Thijs, B 2004 The influence of author self-citations on bibliometric macro indicators. Scientometrics 59 3 281310 .

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  • Glanzel, W, Thijs, B 2004 Does co-authorship inflate the share of self-citations?. Scientometrics 61 3 395404 .

  • Glanzel, W, Debackere, K, Thijs, B, Schubert, A 2006 A concise review on the role of author self-citations in information science, bibliometrics and science policy. Scientometrics 67 2 263277 .

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  • Hartley, J 2008 Academic writing and publishing: A practical handbook Routledge New York, NY.

  • Hartley, J 2009 On the need to distinguish between author and journal self-citations. Scientometrics 81 3 787788 .

  • Hartley, J. (2012). New ways of making academic articles easier to read. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 12 (1), 143160.

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  • Hartley, J. (submitted). Academics’ writing in retirement.

  • Hou, WR, Li, M, Niu, D-K 2011 Counting citations in text rather then reference lists to improve the accuracy of assessing scientific contribution. Bioessays 33:724727 .

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  • Hyland, K 2003 Self-citation and self-reference: Credibility and promotion in academic publications. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 54 3 251259 .

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  • Kulkarni, AV, Aziz, B, Shames, I, Busse, JWJW 2011 Author self-citation in the general medicine literature. PLoS ONE 6 6 e20885 .

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  • Pichappan, P, Sarasvady, S 2002 The other side of the coin: The intricacies of author self-citations. Scientometrics 54 2 285290 .

  • Robillard, A. E. (2006). Young scholars affecting composition: A challenge to disciplinary citation practice. College English, 68 (3), 253270.

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  • Schubert, A, Glanzel, W, Thijs, B 2006 The weight of author self-citations. A fractional approach to self-citation counting. Scientometrics 67 3 503514.

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  • Snyder, H, Bonzi, S 1998 Patterns of self-citations across the disciplines (1980–1989). Journal of Information Science 24 6 431435 .

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  • Vanclay, J. (2011). Impact factor: outdated artefact or stepping-stone to journal certification. Scientometrics. doi: .

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Scientometrics
Language English
Size B5
Year of
Foundation
1978
Volumes
per Year
1
Issues
per Year
12
Founder Akadémiai Kiadó
Founder's
Address
H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
Publisher Akadémiai Kiadó
Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Publisher's
Address
H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
CH-6330 Cham, Switzerland Gewerbestrasse 11.
Responsible
Publisher
Chief Executive Officer, Akadémiai Kiadó
ISSN 0138-9130 (Print)
ISSN 1588-2861 (Online)