4 ms·

I don't think this is true from my experience. I've been on several program committees, and have managed a couple as well. Usually if you're above the first-lev

I don't think this is true from my experience. I've been on several program committees, and have managed a couple as well. Usually if you're above the first-level reviewers (e.g. senior PC, track chair, PC chair), you can see the actual author names and reviewers. Most of the time when an author later says (formally through the review system, or informally in casual conversation) that "I know it's this reviewer who asked me to cite their own paper" they are wrong. Their main evidence is that the reviewer asked them to cite two papers that include the same author. But of course I can't tell them otherwise because of the confidentiality, so they keep on believing that, perpetuating the myth. Perhaps someone can aggregate some statistics on this, but I genuinely believe that authors suggesting their own papers only about 20% of the time, and when they do it's because their paper was highly relevant.

ska 6y ago
I agree, in my experience the request to add citations is usually because there is fairly obvious context missing, and the reviewer wants to make the connection/comparison is made. Sometimes it's the authors own papers, but that's selection bias at work - if they didn't work in the area, they probably wouldn't be reviewing it.
zoomablemind 6y ago
Makes sense. Also at times the automated anti-plagiarism check systems may list some references by similarity of the topic or the certain degree of match, not necessarily suggesting that it's been copied. So it's helping the reviewer to suggest such references to the relevant extent.
cycomanic 6y ago
I think there are two aspects to this, the first one as you mention is that often reviewers just asked to cite relevant papers (and it's not unusual they come from the same author, because the fields are small). The other aspect is, that there are a some black sheep who will ask you to cite a whole bunch of barely relevant papers (often >5) all from the same group. With those you very clearly see that they are abusing the system. I suspect that these instances cloud people's judgement on the first aspect, so they always interpret the question to cite as fraudulent. As a general advice if you suspect reviewers are try to push their citation counts up, a note to the editor (or PC if a conference) will typically help, because most don't look very favourably at this.

ska 6y ago

I agree, in my experience the request to add citations is usually because there is fairly obvious context missing, and the reviewer wants to make the connection/comparison is made. Sometimes it's the authors own papers, but that's selection bias at work - if they didn't work in the area, they probably wouldn't be reviewing it.

zoomablemind 6y ago

Makes sense. Also at times the automated anti-plagiarism check systems may list some references by similarity of the topic or the certain degree of match, not necessarily suggesting that it's been copied. So it's helping the reviewer to suggest such references to the relevant extent.

cycomanic 6y ago

I think there are two aspects to this, the first one as you mention is that often reviewers just asked to cite relevant papers (and it's not unusual they come from the same author, because the fields are small). The other aspect is, that there are a some black sheep who will ask you to cite a whole bunch of barely relevant papers (often >5) all from the same group. With those you very clearly see that they are abusing the system. I suspect that these instances cloud people's judgement on the first aspect, so they always interpret the question to cite as fraudulent. As a general advice if you suspect reviewers are try to push their citation counts up, a note to the editor (or PC if a conference) will typically help, because most don't look very favourably at this.