{"id":38807,"date":"2017-05-08T12:31:48","date_gmt":"2017-05-08T19:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=38807"},"modified":"2017-05-08T12:31:48","modified_gmt":"2017-05-08T19:31:48","slug":"citing-much-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-much-much\/","title":{"rendered":"Citing yourself \u2013 how much is too much?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Should you cite yourself? Ever? Never? Sometimes, and if sometimes, when? And how much? When does sometimes become just too much altogether?<\/p>\n

There are mixed views on self-citation.<\/p>\n

Some people think that it\u2019s quite unseemly to cite yourself at all \u2013 it\u2019s nothing but\u00a0ruthless self-promotion and bragging. And of course, there are<\/em> people who do appear\u00a0to cite nobody much but themselves.<\/p>\n

People who cite themselves when there is a lot of work on the same topic \u2013 even when there are seminal papers that you\u2019d really expect to see named \u2013 \u00a0either don\u2019t know the seminal papers or perhaps just think that theirs is better. A\u00a0prolific\u00a0self citer can easily be read as\u00a0\u201cNo one has done anything worth a damn in this space, just me, me, me\u201d.\u00a0For\u00a0this reason, academic-writing-help-sites\u00a0commonly advise you to cite yourself sparingly so you don\u2019t give the impression that you think yours is the only work on the topic that matters.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure we can all think of people who do have the self -cite habit. Concerns about bragging and self-promotion are not without foundation.\u00a0A serial self-citer really does operate as if academic publication is\u00a0one long selfie.<\/p>\n

But\u2026 there are times when it is perfectly sensible to cite yourself. And it\u2019s better to \u00a0understand the reasons why you might do this\u00a0than struggle with vague and unspecified notions of \u2018lightly self-cite\u2019.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s\u00a0an often-\u00a0unwritten\u00a0general scholarly rule\u00a0that you need\u00a0to cite your previous work when you want to show how a current paper\/project builds on what you\u2019ve done before.<\/p>\n

Given that most of us do have research agendas where we try to build up a body of understanding about something, it\u2019s only logical that we show the steps we took. The practice of self-citation is one which makes\u00a0connections with prior publications clear to readers. It\u2019s an important way of\u00a0making obvious what this<\/em> work adds to what we\u2019ve done before. This is building a contribution.<\/p>\n

For instance,\u00a0it is<\/em>\u00a0very\u00a0sensible for someone doing a PhD by publication to want to cite their previous work. The whole\u00a0point of the\u00a0PhD by publication is to build a linked set of papers around a research question. After the papers, the doctoral researcher is required to write a separate document \u2013 an exegesis or kappa \u2013 where they argue how the papers together constitute an answer to their overarching question. However, it\u2019s desirable that\u00a0\u00a0some connections are created within the papers themselves, as they are being written and published. The connections are not just left\u00a0till the end. And often, one paper in the PhD by publication is \u2018foundational\u2019 in that it makes a case or establishes a set of understandings on which other papers are built. Even if the PhD papers\u00a0are published in different journals, they can still be connected and made coherent through self-citation.<\/p>\n

And the same process applies to more experienced researchers who are building a body of work. For example, I have over a long period of time \u00a0\u2013 yes, now I\u2019m self citing \u2013 \u00a0been playing around with a particular social theory (Bourdieu) to see what his thinking tools can do as methodology. I\u2019ve written some refereed papers and a book<\/a> on the topic. Each of the\u00a0publications\u00a0stands alone, but together they are\u00a0an ongoing project\u00a0which\u00a0explores the limits and potentials of a Bourdieusian\u00a0methodological take on large and small scale social issues. It makes sense for me to refer, in any new Bourdieu papers, to this longer-term agenda\u00a0\u2013 \u00a0and to build on what I have established previously.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s always worth looking at the work of very experienced scholars to see how they do this.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve just been reviewing a book written by someone who is very eminent in my field. He \u2013 well, it is a he \u2013 is widely regarded as a leading international scholar. He\u2019s done empirical work which is ground breaking, he\u2019s been the first to detail particularly important global educational phenomena. He\u2019s also done innovative theoretical work in the field and some which is methodological. Countless doctoral researchers use his work, and really, anyone who writes in my field of education from a social science perspective has<\/em> to cite him. Got the picture?<\/p>\n

The book I\u2019ve been looking at is a big picture view of education. Now, this researcher has truck-loads of his own publications to cite,\u00a0and\u00a0he does refer to some\u00a0which pretty well everyone in the field would also cite. But he doesn\u2019t use the book as the place to mention each and every paper and book he\u2019s ever written. And he\u00a0cites lots of other people\u2019s work \u00a0in order to create the substantive evidence base he needs for the argument he is making, as well as to situate his work in the wider field.\u00a0His\u00a0book is a helpful example of how much self-citation is enough \u2013 there is sufficient\u00a0to show contribution and agenda, to build on prior work. But there is not so much that it raises reader hackles, or suspicions about ego, manipulation of H indices and other self-serving strategies.<\/p>\n

Reading books written by significant scholars in your field, to check for their practices of self citation, can\u00a0help you to test out where you<\/em> think the line on self-citation is drawn.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a further question about self-citation too, which is how you actually accomplish it\u00a0in the text, and I\u2019ll talk some about that in the very next post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Should you cite yourself? Ever? Never? Sometimes, and if sometimes, when? And how much? When does sometimes become just too much altogether? There are mixed views on self-citation. Some people think that it\u2019s quite unseemly to cite yourself at all \u2013 it\u2019s nothing but\u00a0ruthless self-promotion and bragging. And of course, there are people who do […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":38808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[92156],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-38807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-higher-education","tag-citing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCiting yourself \u2013 how much is too much? - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-much-much\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Citing yourself \u2013 how much is too much? - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Should you cite yourself? Ever? Never? Sometimes, and if sometimes, when? And how much? When does sometimes become just too much altogether? There are mixed views on self-citation. Some people think that it\u2019s quite unseemly to cite yourself at all \u2013 it\u2019s nothing but\u00a0ruthless self-promotion and bragging. 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