Research ethics: Coercive citations in academic publishing
Thursday, February 2, 2012 - 23:30
in Psychology & Sociology
Scientists have examined the unethical practices of some journal publications, articulating results from their research to show that some editors coerce authors into adding unnecessary citations to articles in the same journal that is considering publishing the submitted work. Journal editors want to increase the number of times articles within their journals are cited by researchers – because it raises the journal ranking and is used to make claims of prestige and importance.