Self-citation by researchers: narcissism or an inevitable outcome of a cohesive and sustained research program?

Abstract

Steven J. Cooke (steven_cooke@carleton.ca), Fish Ecology and Conservation Physiology Laboratory, Department of Biology and Institute of Environmental Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Michael R. Donaldson (michael.r.donaldson@gmail.com), Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, USA The research community remains focused with enumerating, evaluating, and ranking the research productivity of individual authors despite the apparent shortcomings of doing so. Basic yet widely used citation metrics such as ³WRWDO FLWHV´ (Adam 2002) or ³+LUsch (h) LQGH[´ (Hirsch 2005) require a count of the number of times that a given DXWKRU¶V works are cited. Fortunately there are a variety of electronic bibliometric tools (e.g., Web of Science, Google Scholar, Scopus) that do that work for us. Interestingly, those tools tend to generate default counts that can include self-citations. Self-citations can be defined as occurrences in which the citing and cited papers share at least one author in common (Asknes 2003), although various definitions have been proposed (Fowler and Aksnes 2007, Costas et al. 2010). Self-citations can be easily filtered out with a few clicks to generate ³FRUUHFWHG´ indices (e.g., Schreiber 2007, Brown 2009) or those that discount self-cites (e.g., Ferrara and Romero 2013), but is it necessary to do so? Here, we argue that self-citations need not necessarily be considered a form of narcissistic behavior, and instead could be indicative of a cohesive research program, in which authors refer to their prev-ious relevant works in order to enhance their subsequent contributions to knowledge. When applying for scientific positions, promotions, tenure, or awards, one must decide whether they will report their ³SURGXFWLYLW\´ with or without self-citations, or include both. And, those assessing such researchers must decide which they wish to consider and whether they will ³SHQDOL]H´ someone that fails to exclude self-citations. Some individuals may feel that it is abhorrent to include self-citations while others may be indifferent. On the surface, ³VHOI-FLWDWLRQ´ may appear to border on narcissism. However, the argument could also be made that self-citation is in fact an indicator of RQH¶V promin-ence and productivity in their field. Consider a research-er with a focused research program publishing year after year on related topics, with papers building upon ideas and discoveries codified in previous work. One would expect significant reliance on research papers from the same research lab. Indeed, is that not what an ³LGHDO´ research program should look like? Similarly, if one is working in a highly specialized field where there is simply little other research effort, self-citation would be essential. The more productive one is in terms of output in quantity of papers would also inherently lead to greater potential for self-citations. In this sense, it is reasonable to think that self-citation itself could be used as an indicator of the extent to which one has a cohesive and coordinated research program, with the extent of self-citation scaling with extent of output (in number of papers) from a research program. When building a research program, self-citations can be an important aspect of developing a cohesive knowledge base and moving science forward. For example, if a research program has already been estab-lished, either by the author themselves or their col-laborators and co-authors, it follows that self-citations would be necessary to develop the rationale that the current work is building on previously accumulated knowledge. Likewise, when interpreting findings by drawing on existing literature, self-citations are often necessary. For example, depending on the field of study and research questions being asked, the existing literature may be predominated by the DXWKRU¶V own