The topic for discussion at this Forum was ‘Citation manipulation’. The issue of self citation has been discussed in a number of places before. The focus here is on a form of citation manipulation that qualifies as coercion, where an editor or others affiliated with a journal pressure an author to add citations from that journal for the implied purpose of increasing citation rates and, by extension, journal impact factor.
The issue of self citation has been discussed in a number of places before. The summary below was drafted by Dr Richard Irwin, with input from Ginny Barbour, COPE Chair. This brief commentary is intended to focus attention on a form of citation manipulation that qualifies as coercion, where an editor or others affiliated with a journal pressure an author to add citations from that journal for the implied purpose of increasing citation rates and, by extension, journal impact factor.