Coercive Citation in Academic Publishing

Many journal editors appear to strategically target authors and papers to pressure them into citing the editors' journals. Despite their shortcomings ( 1 – 4 ), impact factors continue to be a primary means by which academics “quantify the quality of science” ( 5 ). One side effect of impact factors is the incentive they create for editors to coerce authors to add citations to their journal. Coercive self-citation does not refer to the normal citation directions, given during a peer-review process, meant to improve a paper. Coercive self-citation refers to requests that (i) give no indication that the manuscript was lacking in attribution; (ii) make no suggestion as to specific articles, authors, or a body of work requiring review; and (iii) only guide authors to add citations from the editor's journal. This quote from an editor as a condition for publication highlights the problem: “you cite Leukemia [once in 42 references]. Consequently, we kindly ask you to add references of articles published in Leukemia to your present article” ( 6 ). Gentler language may be used, but the message is clear: Add citations or risk rejection.