Citation cartel

A citation cartel is a group of academic authors who collude to cite one another's publications in order to artificially increase their citation impact. In many cases the cited works have no strong relevance to the works they are cited in. The practice of making excessive or spurious citations is known as citation stacking.[1]

Mutual citation can occur naturally when small numbers of authors publish in a specialist field, but the term "citation cartel" is usually used to describe the situation where mutual citation is done without reasonable excuse.[2] Because of the difficulty of proving intent, publishers are reluctant to use the term "citation cartel", but are known to deal with individual journals and authors when cartel-like behavior is suspected.

Alleged citation cartels have been found in numerous academic fields,[3] including mathematics,[4] medicine and dentistry.[5] Possible citation cartels can be detected by network analysis of the citation graph.[6][7]

Some citation cartels submit papers claiming to be from developing countries to avoid publication fees in open-access journals.[8]

See also

References

  1. ^ Waltman, Ludo; de Rijcke, Sarah (24 June 2016). "What do we know about journal citation cartels? A call for information". Centre for Science and Technology Studies. Retrieved 2026-02-23.
  2. ^ McCook, Alison (2017-01-18). "How to spot a "citation cartel"". Retraction Watch. Retrieved 2026-02-23.
  3. ^ Kojaku, Sadamori; Livan, Giacomo; Masuda, Naoki (2021-07-15). "Detecting anomalous citation groups in journal networks". Scientific Reports. 11 (1): 14524. arXiv:2009.09097. Bibcode:2021NatSR..1114524K. doi:10.1038/s41598-021-93572-3. ISSN 2045-2322. PMC 8282695. PMID 34267254.
  4. ^ Catanzaro, Michele (30 Jan 2024). "Citation cartels help some mathematicians—and their universities—climb the rankings". Science. 383 (6682). doi:10.1126/science.zcl2s6d. Retrieved 31 Jan 2024.
  5. ^ Zaidi, Syed Jaffar Abbas; Taqi, Muhammad (June 2023). "Citation Cartels in Medical and Dental Journals". Journal of the College of Physicians and Surgeons--Pakistan. 33 (6): 700–701. doi:10.29271/jcpsp.2023.06.700. ISSN 1681-7168. PMID 37300268.
  6. ^ Fister, Iztok; Perc, Matjaž (2016-12-15). "Toward the Discovery of Citation Cartels in Citation Networks". Frontiers in Physics. 4: 49. Bibcode:2016FrP.....4...49F. doi:10.3389/fphy.2016.00049. ISSN 2296-424X.
  7. ^ Dharmshaktu, Ganesh Singh (2024-04-13). "Citation Cartels: A Hidden Menace in the Scientific Publication". Journal of Surgical Specialties and Rural Practice. doi:10.4103/jssrp.jssrp_3_24. ISSN 2772-3143.
  8. ^ Chawla, Dalmeet Singh (2025-01-21). "Citation cartels use fake author names to target chemistry journals". Chemical & Engineering News. Retrieved 2026-02-23.
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