Reviewer 2 has ten comments. The first three are sharp. Comment four reads: “The authors should update their literature review with the following key works,” followed by seven papers, all by the same author, four of which have nothing to do with your topic. Many early-career researchers simply add all seven to avoid trouble. That reflex is exactly what keeps coercive citation alive.
Citations are the currency of academia: they feed h-indices, journal metrics and rankings. Wherever there is currency, someone prints counterfeit. This article helps you recognise the main forms of citation manipulation, respond when you are on the receiving end, and avoid drifting into it yourself.
Common forms of citation manipulation
| Form | Who does it | Signal |
|---|---|---|
| Reviewer-coerced citation | Peer reviewer | Requests for many papers by one author with no stated relevance |
| Editor-coerced citation | Editor or journal | “Suggestions” to cite recent papers from the same journal without scholarly reason |
| Citation cartel | Groups of authors or journals | Unusually dense mutual citation compared with the rest of the field |
| Excessive self-citation | Author | High self-citation rate, many self-citations unrelated to the argument |
| Citation padding | Author | Strings of five or six sources after an uncontroversial sentence |
Not every citation request is suspect
Reviewers are entitled, and expected, to point out important work you missed. That includes their own: reviewers are chosen because they work in your area, so their papers are sometimes genuinely relevant. Three questions separate a fair request from a coercive one:
- Is there a specific scholarly reason? “Paper X used the same scale in a similar population and found the opposite” is a reason. “Update the literature” is not.
- Is the proportion reasonable? One or two of the reviewer’s papers in a longer list is normal. Seven out of seven is not.
- Would adding them improve the paper? If you read a suggested paper and cannot find a natural place for it, that tells you something.
How to respond: read first, decide second
Do not add blindly and do not dismiss everything either. A workable routine:
- Actually read each suggested paper, at least the abstract and results.
- Sort them into three groups: relevant, partly relevant, not relevant.
- Add the first group in the right places and say where in your response letter.
- For the rest, reply briefly, politely and with a reason.
Wording you can adapt:
- “We thank the reviewer for these suggestions. We have added [Paper A] and [Paper B] to Section 2.3, as both used the same instrument. The remaining papers focus on [different topic], so we felt they fell outside the scope of this manuscript.”
- In confidential comments to the editor, if the system allows: “We note that most references suggested in comment 4 come from a single author group and are not directly related to our research question. We have included those that are relevant.”
A reasonable editor will not reject a paper because you declined to cite irrelevant work. If a journal does apply pressure, that is valuable information about the journal.
When the journal itself suggests citing its papers
Some decision letters include lines such as “authors are encouraged to consider recent articles published in this journal.” If this comes with a list of genuinely relevant papers, it may be well meant. If it is a blanket request sent with every decision, it is journal-level coercive citation, which COPE regards as inappropriate. You can decline politely as above; if pressure continues, you are free to withdraw and report the matter to the publisher.
Self-citation: how much is too much?
There is no universal threshold. Someone working in a narrow area and building a long research programme will naturally cite their own earlier work. The right question is whether each self-citation supports the argument. Try this test: if a colleague had written this paper, would they cite that paper of yours? If not, cut it.
Citation databases and several journal metrics now separate or exclude self-citations, and hiring and promotion panels often look at citation counts without them. Padding self-citations is therefore both risky and increasingly pointless.
Do not drift into a citation ring
Arrangements along the lines of “let’s all cite each other to boost our numbers” often start innocently among friends or colleagues. Warning signs: someone circulates a list of papers “to cite if you can,” you are offered citations in exchange for citations, or you add a source you have not read. When you review, ask whether you are doing what you would resent having done to you. Suggest your own work only when there is a concrete reason, and always write that reason down.
When to report to the journal or publisher
- A reviewer demands many irrelevant citations and makes acceptance conditional on them.
- An editor states or implies that the paper will be viewed more favourably if it cites the journal.
- You are invited to join a citation exchange.
Keep the original messages, write briefly, describe what happened rather than speculating about motives, and send it to the editor-in-chief or the publisher’s research integrity team.
A task for today: open the manuscript you are working on, go through the reference list and flag every source you have not read yourself or added only because someone asked. Every source that remains should answer one question: which sentence in my paper does it support?
Câu hỏi thường gặp
Do I have to cite papers a reviewer asks me to cite?
No. Read the suggested papers, add those that are genuinely relevant and explain politely why you have not added the rest. A serious editor will not reject your paper for that alone.
What is coercive citation?
It is when a reviewer, editor or journal pressures authors to cite particular works to inflate citation counts rather than for scholarly reasons. COPE treats it as inappropriate publication practice.
What percentage of self-citation is acceptable?
There is no universal cut-off because it depends on the field and how specialised the work is. What matters is whether each self-citation supports the argument; if another author would not cite it, remove it.
How are citation cartels detected?
Citation databases and publishers analyse citation networks to find groups of authors or journals that cite each other far more than the rest of the field. Journals involved can be suppressed from metric listings.
Who should I report coercive citation to?
Report it to the journal’s editor-in-chief, or to the publisher’s research integrity team if the editor is the source of the pressure. Keep the original correspondence and describe facts rather than motives.
