One in five academics in a variety of social-science and business fields say journal editors have asked them to pad their papers with superfluous references to the journal in question, according to a 2 February survey (A. W. Wilhite and E. A. Fong Science 335, 542-543; 2012). Such self-citations can inflate a journal's impact factor, although Thomson Reuters - which publishes the impact factor - says four-fifths of journals keep self-citations below 30% (see chart).
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