Self-citations at the meso and individual levels: Effects of different calculation methods
Open accessAbstract
This paper focuses on the study of self-citations at the meso and micro (individual) levels, on the basis of an analysis of the production (1994-2004) of individual researchers working at the Spanish CSIC in the areas of Biology and Biomedicine and Material Sciences. Two different types of self-citations are described: author self-citations (citations received from the author him/herself) and co-author self-citations (citations received from the researchers' co-authors but without his/her participation). Self-citations do not play a decisive role in the high citation scores of documents either at the individual or at the meso level, which are mainly due to external citations. At micro-level, the percentage of self-citations does not change by professional rank or age, but differences in the relative weight of author and co-author self-citations have been found. The percentage of co-author self-citations tends to decrease with age and professional rank while the percentage of author self-citations shows the opposite trend. Suppressing author self-citations from citation counts to prevent overblown self-citation practices may result in a higher reduction of citation numbers of old scientists and, particularly, of those in the highest categories. Author and co-author self-citations provide valuable information on the scientific communication process, but external citations are the most relevant for evaluative purposes. As a final recommendation, studies considering self-citations at the individual level should make clear whether author or total self-citations are used as these can affect researchers differently.
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The number of self-citations increases with the number of authors of the citing document.
“Costas et al. (2010) and Aksnes (2003) similarly report that the number of self-citations increases with the number of authors of the citing document.”
From Core Elements in the Process of Citing Publications: Conceptual Overview of the Literature (2018) · cites this paper as Costas et al., 2010
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Flagged first, then by citations
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- Authors
- Costas, R., van Leeuwen, T. N., & Bordons, M.
- Affiliations
- Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (ES)
- Corresponding author
- Costas, Rodrigo
- Venue
- Scientometrics
- Published
- 2010-02-17
- Volume
- 82
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 517-537
- ISSN
- 0138-9130 (ISSN-L)
- 1588-2861
- PMC
- PMC2830585
- OpenAlex
- W2128125167
- Cited by
- 148
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 6.61
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Scientometrics (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Leiden Repository (Leiden University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DIGITAL.CSIC (Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)) (submittedVersion)
- Leiden Repository (Leiden University) (submittedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Web visibility and informetrics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychology Research and Bibliometrics
- Keywords
- self-citation, author self-citation, citation analysis, research evaluation, professional rank
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