Journal Self-Citation Analysis

Journal self-citation analysis separates the citations a journal gives to itself from the citations it gives to and receives from the wider literature, in order to understand a journal's internal coherence and to detect potential inflation of impact metrics. Ronald Rousseau showed in 1999 that a journal's citation curve is really two curves superimposed: a self-citation component and an external-citation component, each with its own timing. Wolfgang Glänzel and colleagues, surveying the self-citation literature, distinguished the legitimate, communicative role of self-citation from its problematic use to manipulate indicators, and clarified how to measure its effect. The analysis revolves around two complementary rates: the self-cited rate, the share of a journal's incoming citations that come from itself, and the self-citing rate, the share of its outgoing references that point to itself. Comparing impact metrics with and without self-citations reveals how much a journal's standing depends on citing itself.