Category: citation manipulation

Observers describe the quantity of research information now produced variously as “torrent,” “overload,” “proliferation,” or the like. Technological advances in computing and telecommunication have helped us keep up, to an extent. But, I would argue, scholarly and journalistic ethics have not kept pace.

As a case in point, consider the journal article literature review. Its function is twofold: to specify where new information fits within the context of what is already known; and to avoid unknowingly duplicating research projects the public has already paid for. Paradoxically, however, information proliferation may discourage honest and accurate literature reviews. Research information accumulates, which increases the time required for conducting a thorough literature review, which increases the incentive to avoid it.  

Most dismissive reviews that I have encountered are raw declarations. A scholar, pundit, or journalist simply declares that no research on a topic exists (or couldn’t be any good if it did exist). No mention is made of how or where (or, even if) they searched. Certain themes appear over and over, such as:

Continue reading Dismissive reviews: A cancer on the body of knowledge

A journal has allowed a geophysicist who cited his own work hundreds of times across 10 papers to retract the articles and republish them with a fraction of the self-citations.

From 2017 to 2019, Yangkang Chen published some of the papers in Geophysical Journal International, an Oxford University Press title, while he was a postdoc at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the U.S., and some as a faculty member at Zhejiang University in China. In April, the journal subjected the works to expressions of concern. 

On June 19, the journal published a retraction notice for the 10 papers, along with an editor’s note that read:

Continue reading Cite yourself excessively, apologize, then republish the papers with fewer self-citations. Journal says: Fine.

This is an invited guest post related to news about two suppression reversals announced today by Clarivate.

The research process is rarely straightforward. There are a myriad of ways in which it can go wrong, from the inception of a hypothesis that goes on to be disproved, to failed experiments and rejected manuscripts, hopefully ending in the “happily ever after” of adding to the scholarly record through publication and worldwide dissemination… before starting all over again. Being able to build on the corpus of existing knowledge is essential for future discoveries and innovation: As Newton wrote back in 1675 “If I have seen further, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”

Sadly, we know that even once published, many scientific results are not easily reproducible, and some are amended or retracted. Fraud and misconduct might be the attention-grabbing explanations for the lack of reproducibility in research, but more often than not, it is honest mistakes or making decisions with inaccurate or incomplete information that lead to errata, corrigenda or retraction of articles. Many have argued we need to be more honest about this – and to see retraction as a good thing. Correction of the version of record should be embraced, rather than avoided, and the stigma surrounding retractions should be removed.

Why should the same not apply for suppression?

Continue reading The positive case for suppression: A guest post from the editor in chief of Clarivate’s Web of Science

Following pushback from members of the taxonomy community, Clarivate Analytics, the company behind the Impact Factor, has reversed its decision to suppress two journals from receiving those scores this year.

As we reported in late June, Clarivate suppressed 33 journals from its Journal Citation Reports, which meant denying them an Impact Factor, for high levels of self-citation that boosted their scores and ranking. Many universities — controversially — rely on Impact Factor to judge the work of their researchers, so the move could have a dramatic effect on journals and the authors whose work appears in them.

As we reported earlier this month, at least three journals have appealed the move: Zootaxa, the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, and Body Image. Today, Clarivate announced it was reversing its decision on the two taxonomy journals, Zootaxa and the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.

In a statement, Clarivate said:

Continue reading Major indexing service reverses decision to suppress two journals from closely followed metric

More than 70% of the citations in one journal were to other papers in that journal. Another published a single paper that cited nearly 200 other articles in the journal.

Now, Clarivate, the company behind the Impact Factor, is taking steps to fight such behavior, suppressing 33 journals from their indexing service and subjecting 15 more to expressions of concern — all for apparent self-citation that boosted the journals’ rankings.

The list includes some of publishing’s biggest players: Nine journals published by Elsevier, seven by Springer Nature, six by Taylor & Francis, and five by Wiley.

Continue reading Major indexing service sounds alarm on self-citations by nearly 50 journals

Some peer reviews evidently are tempted to ask authors to cite their work, perhaps as a way to boost their own influence. But a recent episode at the journal Bioinformatics suggests, the risk can outweigh the reward.

We’ll let the editors — Jonathan Wren, Alfonso Valencia and Janet Kelso — tell the tale, which they did in “Reviewer-coerced citation: Case report, update on journal policy, and suggestions for future prevention:” Continue reading The case of the reviewer who said cite me or I won’t recommend acceptance of your work