2025/025 | : Avoiding Citation Cartels, Coercive Citation, and Token Referencing
Citations are the currency of scholarship. They credit sources, trace intellectual lineage, and enable readers to verify claims. Yet citation practices can be manipulated for personal or collective gain, undermining the integrity of the scientific record. This post explores unethical citation behaviors—citation cartels, coercive citation, and token referencing—and offers guidance on responsible citation practices.
The Purpose of Citations
Legitimate citations serve multiple functions:
- Attribution: Acknowledge the intellectual contributions of others
- Evidence: Support claims with credible sources
- Context: Situate work within the broader scholarly conversation
- Navigation: Help readers find related work
- Evaluation: Enable assessment of research quality and impact
When citations are used strategically to inflate metrics rather than serve these scholarly functions, they become problematic.
Citation Cartels
What Are Citation Cartels?
A citation cartel is an agreement among researchers, journals, or institutions to systematically cite each other's work to artificially boost citation counts and impact metrics.
How They Operate:
- Reciprocal citation agreements: "I'll cite your paper if you cite mine"
- Journal-level cartels: Journals encourage authors to cite other articles from the same journal excessively
- Institutional or national cartels: Researchers from the same institution or country preferentially cite each other
Why They're Problematic:
- Distort bibliometric indicators (h-index, journal impact factors)
- Misrepresent the influence and relevance of research
- Waste readers' time with irrelevant references
- Undermine the credibility of citation-based rankings
Detection and Consequences:
Bibliometric analysis can identify suspicious citation patterns. Publishers have delisted journals from databases like Web of Science for engaging in citation manipulation.
Coercive Citation
What Is Coercive Citation?
Coercive citation occurs when editors, reviewers, or supervisors pressure authors to cite specific papers—typically their own work or work from their journal—as a condition of publication or approval.
Common Scenarios:
- Editor requests: "Your manuscript would be strengthened by citing more articles from our journal"
- Reviewer demands: Anonymous reviewers insist authors cite their work (sometimes identifiable through self-reference)
- Supervisor pressure: PhD advisors require students to cite all their publications
Why It's Unethical:
- Violates academic freedom and intellectual honesty
- Creates conflicts of interest
- Inflates citation metrics unfairly
- May introduce irrelevant or low-quality references
What Authors Can Do:
- Politely push back: "I don't believe these additional citations are relevant to my argument"
- Report coercive behavior to journal editors or publishers
- Consider withdrawing the manuscript if coercion persists
- Professional societies (e.g., COPE) have guidelines against coercive citation
Token Referencing (Superficial Citation)
What Is Token Referencing?
Token referencing involves citing sources without meaningfully engaging with their content—adding citations for appearance rather than substance.
Examples:
- Citation padding: Listing numerous sources in the introduction without discussing them
- Second-hand citations: Citing sources mentioned in other papers without reading the originals
- Irrelevant citations: Adding citations that don't support the claim they're attached to
- Self-citation excess: Overwhelming reference lists with one's own prior work
Why It's Problematic:
- Misleads readers about the evidentiary base
- Inflates citation counts without intellectual contribution
- Wastes reviewers' and readers' time
Responsible Citation Practices
1. Cite for Relevance, Not Metrics
Include citations that genuinely inform, support, or contextualize your work. Avoid adding references merely to increase your reference count or flatter potential reviewers.
2. Read What You Cite
Do not cite sources you haven't read. If you must reference a source mentioned in another paper, cite it as "Smith (2010), as cited in Jones (2020)" to maintain transparency.
3. Be Balanced and Fair
Acknowledge competing theories, alternative explanations, and contradictory findings. Selective citation that ignores inconvenient evidence is intellectually dishonest.
4. Self-Cite Judiciously
Self-citation is legitimate when your prior work is directly relevant, but excessive self-citation raises red flags. Ask: Would an independent reviewer consider this self-citation necessary?
5. Resist Coercion
If an editor or reviewer demands inappropriate citations, politely decline and, if necessary, report the behavior. Document the request in case escalation is needed.
6. Diversify Your Sources
Avoid over-reliance on a small set of authors, journals, or institutions. Seek out diverse perspectives, including work from different geographic regions, career stages, and disciplines.
7. Use Citation Management Tools Responsibly
Tools like Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote help manage references, but don't let automation replace critical judgment about what to cite.
Institutional and Editorial Responsibilities
Journals Should:
- Prohibit coercive citation in editorial policies and reviewer guidelines
- Monitor their own citation patterns for manipulation
- Train editors and reviewers on ethical citation practices
- Investigate and sanction cartels or coercive behavior
Institutions Should:
- Educate researchers on citation ethics
- Avoid incentivizing metrics (e.g., h-index) that encourage gaming
- Recognize quality and impact beyond citation counts
Publishers and Databases Should:
- Use algorithms to detect suspicious citation patterns
- Delist or penalize journals engaging in manipulation
- Provide transparency reports on citation integrity
Conclusion
Citations are a cornerstone of scholarly communication, but they are vulnerable to manipulation. Citation cartels, coercive citation, and token referencing undermine the integrity of the research record and distort our understanding of scientific influence. By committing to responsible citation practices—citing for relevance, reading what we cite, resisting coercion, and maintaining balance—we protect the credibility of our work and the trust of our readers.
Future posts in this series will address safeguarding human participants, responsible use of AI in research, and other dimensions of research integrity.