Sincere scholars work to expand society’s knowledge and understanding. They cite all the relevant research, even that produced by those they disagree with or personally dislike. They encourage debate. For the sincere scholar, a citation is a responsibility, and proper and thorough citations demonstrate research quality.
For the strategic scholar, a citation is an asset to be used career-advantageously. As a certain former governor of the State of Illinois once said about his responsibility to fill an open US senate position, “I’ve got this thing and it’s (expletive) golden. I’m not just giving it up for (expletive) nothing.”
Strategic scholars cite the work of their friends, working colleagues, those they agree with, and those who reference them. Indeed, the most successful career-strategic scholars operate in groups of like-minded colleagues in which they promote each other’s careers together—citation cartels. They draw attention to that other work which supports their own and their careers.
Career-strategic scholars do not cite the work of those outside their group, unless they must because that other work is so well known their slight would be widely noticed. Debates are generally avoided with those outside one’s cartel.
Given the contrasting dynamics, over time the work of career-strategic scholars will attract more attention, produce better scholarly metrics which, in turn, leads to better employment outcomes and higher status. The work of sincere scholars, unreferenced by the career-strategic scholars now leading their professions, drifts into the internet age’s vast sea of ignored information.
Imagine a society of twenty scholars—ten career-strategic and ten sincere—all researching the same topic. The strategic scholars cite only each other, whereas the sincere scholars cite everyone.
Assume ten publications a year per scholar, each with ten citations. Those ten citations are contained within the group among the strategic scholars but spread across all by the sincere.
After one year, the strategic scholars as a group will have accumulated 1,500 citations, 1,000 from themselves and another 500 from sincere scholars. Meanwhile, the sincere scholars as a group will have accumulated only the 500 citations of their own. After two years, the strategic scholars will have accumulated 3,000 citations, whereas the sincere scholars will have accumulated only 1,000.
The ratio after ten years: 15,000 for the strategic and 5,000 for the sincere. After twenty years: 30,000 to 10,000. After thirty years: 45,000 to 15,000.
Incidentally, strategic scholars can affect mutually beneficial attention boosting in situations beyond publication citations. I participated in a five-person expert panel before a state legislative committee several years ago. Two other panelists obviously knew each other well and shared the same point of view on the issue at hand.
But they sat at opposite ends of the table, as if to suggest social, as well as physical, separation. Each time a legislator posed a question to one of them, however, she would respond and then refer to the other for clarification or further response. That way, they each accumulated twice as many opportunities to talk as the other panelists.
Lopsided ratios in information dissemination can produce large disparities in society’s effective knowledge production and understanding of reality. Status and rewards in academia are based on scholars’ perceived production and impact, relative to others.’ Policymakers and journalists tend to direct their attention toward, and trust, those scholars with the most credentials.
Moreover, when celebrity scholars hold all the microphones, they can debate other scholars when and if they choose. Acting strategically, they are more likely to choose to debate when they feel they can win. Thus, the better the argument made against their work, the less likely a debate will ensue.
When the public, policymakers, or journalists get advice from sincere scholars, they receive a thorough and honest appraisal of the subject. When they get advice from strategic scholars, they receive only the subset of the relevant policy research that benefits those scholars’ careers. When government or foundations fund sincere scholars they, again, receive a thorough and honest appraisal of the subject. When they fund strategic scholars, they receive only a skewed subset. Indeed, their funds may be used to ignore or dismiss more policy-relevant information than is newly produced, in which case they fund a reduction in policy-relevant knowledge.
Richard P. Phelps is founder and editor of the Nonpartisan Education Review.
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I have come to believe that most traits lie on a continuum that resembles the normal curve. As such, the proportion of scholars that are largely sincere vs. largely strategic lies at the extremes of the curve and are, therefore, much smaller than that of scholars who possess a mixture sincerity and strategic-ness and who represent the bulk of the total.
An important consideration, however, is that what often determines the expression of a trait is not so much the extent to which one possess that trait, but the specific situation in which the trait will manifest itself. Right now, my sense of the situation is that citation counts tend to be valued above scientific-scholarly truth. Unfortunately, I see no evidence that the competitive climate in which science and scholarship functions and which causes us to value citation counts, is moving in a healthier direction that would naturally discourage their strategic use. Thus, to the long-term detriment of us all, strategic science and scholarship are likely here to stay.
I agree with the premise of this article. However, there may be trivial reasons for poor citation of papers and reviews: my old advisor would not allow me to include (cite) references in our papers because he was too lazy to add them in his endnote file, and for some reason he would not allow me to add them in, although I would have been happy to.
I believe its more than this… expand citation cartels to “citation/grant funding” cartels: cartels of colleagues (often including the former post-docs of the PI’s) who are not as critical of their friends grant applications as much as people they don’t know very well or like. Example: I recall an old PI advisor telling me that a colleague he had written a nice letter of ref for so he could get a good job as a PI in another R1 school sat on my PI’s grant review committee, and told him “he had nothing to worry about”. I know this is weak anecdotal evidence, but I suspect this is the tip of the iceberg.
In science, the Matthew affect occurs through back slapping, not unlike what happens in any other job.
In short, science is like any other social vocation: “its not what you know, but who you know.” That was a huge disappointment to me, as I wanted to go into science in part to get away from this.
I’ve noticed this circular citation system in a number of different fields of research. It becomes more obvious as one gets more familiar with the literature. These papers and their results become less and less of interest as they add nothing or only trivial increments. Circles of self-citing groups have another name – silos. Silos are intended to contain, not expand indefinitely.