4 ms·

This seems kind of bogus to me. Yeah, I can see how someone could construe it as such, but I think there's a perfectly legitimate reason to mention possible cit

This seems kind of bogus to me. Yeah, I can see how someone could construe it as such, but I think there's a perfectly legitimate reason to mention possible citations in the review. If I get a paper that covers something I've written about in the past, I feel perfectly justified saying, "Gosh, this has been published before. Perhaps you should cite this and explain how your work is new." I do it for other papers and I don't see why it would be wrong to do it for my own. Oh, I can understand how someone can twist it sound nefarious, but that doesn't seem the best solution to me. More citations to prior work is a good thing. More discussion about what is truly novel is a good thing. And let's be honest, my salary won't change one iota if I get another few citations. The idea that this is somehow selfish is really bogus. Citations aren't worth that much at all.

bonoboTP 7y ago
That's reasonable. However in many cases reviewers push some very tangentially related paper of theirs that is far from what you describe.
lutorm 7y ago
This is true. But did you actually read what the study said? They point out that there is a small number of referees who consistently have their own work cited at a much higher rate than the majority of the referees. If referees and authors are semi-randomly matched, there's no reason a small number of referees should consistently get to review papers that have incorrectly omitted references to their own papers.
namirez 7y ago
>And let's be honest, my salary won't change one iota if I get another few citations. The idea that this is somehow selfish is really bogus. Citations aren't worth that much at all. I'm not sure if this is true. Citations are the primary currency in academia. It's not about money; it's about prestige. >More citations to prior work is a good thing. More discussion about what is truly novel is a good thing. Again I'm not so sure about this. The problem is that most papers are not novel at all. There are some seminal papers in each subject that everyone cites. There are also papers that are closely related to what someone is doing. Everything else is usually a distraction.
diffeomorphism 7y ago
> And let's be honest, my salary won't change one iota if I get another few citations. The idea that this is somehow selfish is really bogus. Citations aren't worth that much at all. IF you already have a permanent position and many papers. While you are still a young researcher with fewer publications, hiring committees definitely are also interested in whether your papers are highly cited (see also the whole notion of "impact factor" of a journal).
- itcrowd 7y ago
  Yes, this is correct. Additionally, massive cash incentives are being handed out in (at least) China [1]. This reward is given based on the impact factor of the journal, which means that excessive citation of your papers can artificially inflate the IF of the journal and lead to higher payout for your next article(s). It's a bit of a stretch, but it could have an impact if it is done on a massive scale. [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608266/the-truth-about-chinas-cash-for-publication-policy/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608266/the-truth-about-ch...

bonoboTP 7y ago

That's reasonable. However in many cases reviewers push some very tangentially related paper of theirs that is far from what you describe.

lutorm 7y ago

This is true. But did you actually read what the study said? They point out that there is a small number of referees who consistently have their own work cited at a much higher rate than the majority of the referees. If referees and authors are semi-randomly matched, there's no reason a small number of referees should consistently get to review papers that have incorrectly omitted references to their own papers.

namirez 7y ago

>And let's be honest, my salary won't change one iota if I get another few citations. The idea that this is somehow selfish is really bogus. Citations aren't worth that much at all. I'm not sure if this is true. Citations are the primary currency in academia. It's not about money; it's about prestige. >More citations to prior work is a good thing. More discussion about what is truly novel is a good thing. Again I'm not so sure about this. The problem is that most papers are not novel at all. There are some seminal papers in each subject that everyone cites. There are also papers that are closely related to what someone is doing. Everything else is usually a distraction.

diffeomorphism 7y ago

> And let's be honest, my salary won't change one iota if I get another few citations. The idea that this is somehow selfish is really bogus. Citations aren't worth that much at all. IF you already have a permanent position and many papers. While you are still a young researcher with fewer publications, hiring committees definitely are also interested in whether your papers are highly cited (see also the whole notion of "impact factor" of a journal).

itcrowd 7y ago
Yes, this is correct. Additionally, massive cash incentives are being handed out in (at least) China [1]. This reward is given based on the impact factor of the journal, which means that excessive citation of your papers can artificially inflate the IF of the journal and lead to higher payout for your next article(s). It's a bit of a stretch, but it could have an impact if it is done on a massive scale. [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608266/the-truth-about-chinas-cash-for-publication-policy/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608266/the-truth-about-ch...