Potentially coercive self-citation by peer reviewers: a cross-sectional study.

OBJECTIVE Peer reviewers sometimes request that authors cite their work, either appropriately or via coercive self-citation to highlight the reviewers' work. The objective of this study was to determine in peer reviews submitted to one biomedical journal (1) the extent of peer reviewer self-citation; (2) the proportion of reviews recommending revision or acceptance versus rejection that included reviewer self-citations; and (3) the proportion of reviewer self-citations versus citations to others that included a rationale. METHODS Peer reviews for manuscripts submitted in 2012 to the Journal of Psychosomatic Research were evaluated. Data extraction was performed independently by two investigators. RESULTS There were 616 peer reviews (526 reviewers; 276 manuscripts), of which 444 recommended revision or acceptance and 172 rejection. Of 428 total citations, there were 122 peer reviewer self-citations (29%) and 306 citations to others' work (71%). Self-citations were more common in reviews recommending revision or acceptance (105 of 316 citations; 33%) versus rejection (17/112; 15%; p<0.001). The percentage of self-citations with no rationale (26 of 122; 21%) was higher than for citations to others' work (15 of 306; 5%; p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS Self-citation in peer reviews is common and may reflect a combination of appropriate citation to research that should be cited in published articles and inappropriate citation intended to highlight the work of the peer reviewer. Providing instructions to peer reviewers about self-citation and asking them to indicate when and why they have self-cited may help to limit self-citation to appropriate, constructive recommendations.

[1]  T. Opthof,et al.  Inflation of impact factors by journal self-citation in cardiovascular science , 2013, Netherlands Heart Journal.

[2]  Matthew E Falagas,et al.  “Eigenlob”: self‐citation in biomedical journals , 2006, FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

[3]  Jason W. Busse,et al.  Author Self-Citation in the General Medicine Literature , 2011, PloS one.

[4]  黄亚明（整理）,et al.  ICMJE , 2012 .

[5]  Athina Tatsioni,et al.  Who is afraid of reviewers’ comments? Or, why anything can be published and anything can be cited , 2010, European journal of clinical investigation.

[6]  Ben R. Martin,et al.  Whither research integrity? Plagiarism, self-plagiarism and coercive citation in an age of research assessment , 2013 .

[7]  T. Jefferson,et al.  Editorial peer review for improving the quality of reports of biomedical studies. , 2007, The Cochrane database of systematic reviews.

[8]  Lawrence Souder,et al.  The ethics of scholarly peer review: a review of the literature , 2011, Learn. Publ..

[9]  R Smith,et al.  Opening up BMJ peer review , 1999, BMJ.

[10]  E. J. McKinin,et al.  Beyond relevance--characteristics of key papers for clinicians: an exploratory study in an academic setting. , 1996, Bulletin of the Medical Library Association.

[11]  Matthew E. Falagas,et al.  The top-ten in journal impact factor manipulation , 2008, Archivum Immunologiae et Therapiae Experimentalis.

[12]  David B. Resnik,et al.  Perceptions of Ethical Problems with Scientific Journal Peer Review: An Exploratory Study , 2008, Sci. Eng. Ethics.

[13]  B. Thombs,et al.  A solution to inappropriate self-citation via peer review , 2012, Canadian Medical Association Journal.

[14]  Tony Delamothe,et al.  Effect on peer review of telling reviewers that their signed reviews might be posted on the web: randomised controlled trial , 2010, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[15]  E. Fong,et al.  Coercive Citation in Academic Publishing , 2012, Science.

[16]  Ermenegyldo Munhoz Junior.  Requisitos uniformes para manuscritos submetidos a periódicos biomédicos: escrevendo e editando para publicações biomédicas , 2006 .

[17]  M Atkinson,et al.  ‘Peer review’ culture , 2001, Science and engineering ethics.

[18]  Detmar W. Straub,et al.  Journal Self-Citation VI: Forced Journal Self-Citation - Common, Appropriate, Ethical? , 2009, Commun. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[19]  J. E. Hirsch,et al.  An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output , 2005, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.