Signs of ‘citation hacking’ flagged in scientific papers

Signs of ‘citation hacking’ flagged in scientific papers

Algorithm flags signs of ‘citation hacking’

Scientists who get too many references to their own work inserted in others’ papers — whether by previous arrangement or by asking for extra references during peer review — might leave telltale fingerprints in the citation record, say two researchers who have developed a way to detect what they call citation hacking. A statistical analysis of more than 20,000 authors’ citation patterns found at least 80 scientists whose citations indicate “chronic, repeated” reference-list manipulation, the researchers say. The patterns also suggest that around 16% of authors in their sample “may have engaged in reference list manipulation to some degree”.

Nature | 5 min readReference: bioRxiv preprint