Comments on: Should Editors Influence Journal Impact Factors?

By: Old PhDs and the Matthew Effect — Is the Attention Economy of Scholarship Making Science Too Staid? « The Scholarly Kitchen

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:24:13 +0000

[...] reality of the attention economy in science is the Matthew Effect, named after a Biblical passage and popularized in 1968 by Robert K. Merton. [...]

By: December « Dee'tjes

December « Dee'tjes — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 14:19:27 +0000

[...] Should Editors Influence Journal Impact Factors? Uit de hoek van de uitgevers: SSP: Society for scholarly publishing [...]

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 05:01:13 +0000

The impact-factor effect of "A gentle nudge by an editor to cite additional papers" etc. is surely modest in comparison with "appalling" and "clear-cut" cases of intentionally gaming the system. This really does happen, add it makes junk journals rate better than good ones.

By: Do Medical Editors Discriminate Against Poor Authors? « The Scholarly Kitchen

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:55:41 +0000

[...] But is this interpretation fair? The fundamental problem with this line of reasoning is considering citations to be indicators of quality over indicators of attention. [...]

By: David Stuart

David Stuart — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:51:04 +0000

Editors can suggest what they like, but authors should take responsibility for their own work at the end of the day.

Personally I wouldn’t submit research papers to journals that had a policy of promoting self-citation. If your work is of a higher enough calibre it can easily be submitted elsewhere.

By: Stuart Taylor

Stuart Taylor — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:07:46 +0000

It is legitimate for an Editor to suggest a reference the author has not cited if that article is relevant to the issue being discussed and would provide the reader with pertinent information or clarify something within the article. This should never be a demand, nor should it be done purely because that reference is to that Editor’s journal.

In practice, of course, it may not always be determine exactly what the Editor’s real motive is, especially when the reference being suggested in, in fact, from that Editor’s journal.