Whenever citations are used as indicators to evaluate scientific research, selfcitations
are often considered problematic.1,2 Although authors may have good reasons
J. H. FOWLER, D. W. AKSNES: Does self-citation pay?
428 Scientometrics 72 (2007)
to cite their own works, these citations do not necessarily reflect the importance of their
work or its impact on the rest of the scientific community.3,4 If scholars have a strategic
incentive to cite themselves5
, it may distort the information in citation counts and
reduce their reliability as a proxy for quality or visibility. Thus, it is important to know
how prevalent self-citation is and how it influences citations from others. Many scholars
have studied self-citation6-11 and some suggest that self-citations should be removed
from citation counts, at least at micro and meso levels (e.g. analyses of persons,
research groups, departments, and institutions).3,11 In fact, some producers of
bibliometric indicators have begun to identify and publish the proportion of selfcitations
in order to be able to draw more reliable conclusions about the real impact
each publication has on the scientific community.