Researchers Feel Pressure To Cite Superfluous Papers 107
ananyo writes "One in five academics in a variety of social science and business fields say they have been asked to pad their papers with superfluous references in order to get published. The figures, from a survey published in the journal Science (abstract), also suggest that journal editors strategically target junior faculty, who in turn were more willing to acquiesce. The controversial practice is not new: those studying publication ethics have for many years noted that some editors encourage extra references in order to boost a journal's impact factor (a measure of the average number of citations an article in the journal receives over two years). But the survey is the first to try to quantify what it calls 'coercive citation,' and shows that this is 'uncomfortably common.' Perhaps the most striking finding of the survey was that although 86% of the respondents said that coercion was inappropriate, and 81% thought it damaged a journal's prestige, 57% said they would add superfluous citations to a paper before submitting it to a journal known to coerce. However, figures from Thomson Reuters suggest that social-science journals tend to have more self-citations than basic-science journals."
All too familiar. (Score:5, Funny)
I'm shocked [3][12][21]! (Score:5, Funny)
Shocked [3][12][21], I tell you! [4][7]! Studies [14][17][31] have shown [11][15] that this [26] never [21][22] happens [25] with reputable [5][14][24] papers [19]! How could this [32] have happened? [12][16]
Re:Sample Size Errors (Score:5, Funny)
I did RTFA. The authors of the paper surveyed 54,000 academics, and about 1,300 responded to say, "Yes we felt pressured." That's 2.5%. Only 1/3 of those named a single journal that pressured them. Another 2.5% said, "We've heard that others have been pressured, but never us." 7.5% said, "We've never heard of it." And 87.5% didn't respond. The survey shows extreme self-selection as 7 of 8 academics did not respond. So before someone gets excited that 20% of academics are pressured, note that under 13% of academics responded.
... because the other ~87% were pressured to keep silent?
Re:Sample Size Errors (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sorry, but it's hard for me to take this post seriously without at least one citation.
Re:Mod parent up! (Score:5, Funny)
Who modded this flamebait? It's right on point.
[citation needed]