Researchers Feel Pressure To Cite Superfluous Papers

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 Science, 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,” according to authors Allen Wilhite, an economist, and Eric Fong, who researches management, both at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.