{"id":38897,"date":"2017-05-15T04:22:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T11:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=38897"},"modified":"2017-05-15T04:22:00","modified_gmt":"2017-05-15T11:22:00","slug":"self-citation-proxy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/self-citation-proxy\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-citation by proxy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Meet\u00a0Dr Oozing-Confidence. He knows his work is important. Very important. Superior\u00a0even. He gets very miffed when he reads anything that is on his topic, or connected with it, that doesn\u2019t recognise his contributions and their significance. He is always keen to point these ignoramuses to the key texts in the field \u2013 his.<\/p>\n

And now meet Dr Veryveryanxious. Dr Veryveryanxious is concerned that no one is citing him. He wants to make sure that his hard won publications get talked about. This is in part\u00a0because he thinks his stuff is good and probably important \u2013 and he is mystified why it doesn\u2019t get cited\u00a0more. But he has also recently become concerned about the ways in which his peers keep quoting their citations and H Index at him. He is more than a bit worried that at some point his employer might notice that he is one of those people whose journal articles hardly seem to ever be featured in most downloaded or most read. Because of this, he is always looking for ways to point people to his work.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t feel sorry for either of these two.\u00a0 Both Dr Veryveryanxious and Dr Oozing-Confidence have found a neat way to ensure that other people know about their work. And it is a very cunning strategy. Because not only do other people get to hear about their work, but they also have to find it, and then read it, and then deal with it.<\/p>\n

How? Well, it\u2019s simple really. \u00a0They insert references to\u00a0their work into a blind peer review.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure you know how this goes.<\/p>\n

The author might benefit from reading\u2026 all my own work. This is a good paper but would be enhanced by addressing concerns raised by \u2026 all my own work. The paper seems inadequately grounded in the extant literatures; the writer particularly needs to read\u2026 all my own work. I found the omission of \u2026 all my own work\u2026 surprising. If the writer had read\u2026 all my own work\u2026 then they would have known that\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Faced with this kind of all my own work<\/em> recommendation, the writer-under-review has little option but to find the references, read them and work out whether they are indeed relevant to their argument. And even if they aren\u2019t, they still have to tell The Editor in their letter of response why they haven\u2019t included them in the final revised text.<\/p>\n

But there will be a recorded hit on the journal website(s). RESULT.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the writer-under-review will\u00a0cite a paper\u00a0as the line of least resistance to the peer review comments. The I may as well put it in as that\u2019s what they seem to want<\/em> response. RESULT.<\/p>\n

And even if the writer doesn\u2019t follow the reviewer\u2019s advice \u2013 and why should they if it doesn\u2019t actually make sense\u00a0\u2013 they have now read the recommended papers and they might refer to them in the future. RESULT.<\/p>\n

The thing is of course that writers can generally pick a review by Dr Veryveryanxious and Dr Oozing-Confidence. They know that they are being told to cite them and only them. They also understand that this is self-citation by proxy. <\/strong>When\u00a0all that is offered by way of other recommended reading is a single author, and all my own work\u00a0<\/em>it not only raises suspicions but often hackles as well.<\/p>\n

Now\u00a0there is a real dilemma here for reviewers who actually do<\/strong> have work that is relevant to a paper they are reviewing and want to let the writer know, without seeming to be either one of the above self-obsessed academic types. How to do this without seeming to be entirely egotistical, bragging or self-promoting?\u00a0\u00a0If it \u2018s not wrong or inappropriate for a reviewer to tell people about their own relevant work, and if it\u2019s really only a problem for the writer when it\u2019s an all my own work<\/em> response, then what do<\/strong> you do?<\/p>\n

The answer is relatively straightforward. Don\u2019t just offer yourself. Offer a selection of further readings, including a pointer to the piece of your work that is pertinent.<\/p>\n

Reviewers who offer a menu of possibilities \u2013 not just all my own work<\/em>\u00a0but that of other scholars too \u2013 are actually giving the writer an\u00a0entr\u00e9e into the parts of the academic conversation that they might not have yet come across. They offer a number of possibilities that would enhance the paper, add to the argument, modify it, provide more helpful evidence. They offer the conversation, the context, the debate, not just a single position within it.\u00a0As long as the particular reviewer\u2019s work is situated in the relevant conversation, then it is doing a scholarly service. And it will also meet the unwritten rules of good scholarly etiquette.<\/p>\n

You see, peer reviewing<\/a> is not a monologue. It\u2019s always a dialogue with the paper writer, and\u00a0with others the field as well. One of the things that good reviewers look for is how the paper is situated in the field \u2013 not how it relates to my work alone. Peer\u00a0reviewing is a place where we have to be mindful of our context, and our behaviour, and our peers, and the work of all of us together. Self-citation by stealth isn\u2019t OK.<\/p>\n

But Dr Veryveryanxious is just too nervous to stop and think about his scholarly purposes or his manners. Dr Oozing Confidence, still seeking the scholarly equivalent of world domination by sundown, doesn\u2019t even notice they exist.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t be like them.\u00a0Good scholarly conduct. Good scholarly etiquette. Not all my own work.<\/em> It\u2019s the conversation that really counts.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meet\u00a0Dr Oozing-Confidence. He knows his work is important. Very important. Superior\u00a0even. He gets very miffed when he reads anything that is on his topic, or connected with it, that doesn\u2019t recognise his contributions and their significance. He is always keen to point these ignoramuses to the key texts in the field \u2013 his. And now […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":38898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[12902],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-38897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-higher-education","tag-peer-reviewing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSelf-citation by proxy - 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\/self-citation-proxy\/\" 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=\"Self-citation by proxy - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Meet\u00a0Dr Oozing-Confidence. He knows his work is important. Very important. Superior\u00a0even. He gets very miffed when he reads anything that is on his topic, or connected with it, that doesn\u2019t recognise his contributions and their significance. He is always keen to point these ignoramuses to the key texts in the field \u2013 his. 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