Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A researcher citing their own earlier methods paper instead of re-describing a validated protocol in full, so readers can locate the detailed procedure without it being repeated in every subsequent paper.
- Is an instance
An author citing their own prior study to properly credit and contextualize how a new paper extends or replicates that earlier work, using the same citation-style conventions (APA, MLA, Chicago, Vancouver) applied to any other reference.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
An author citing several of their own tangentially related papers in an introduction with no substantive connection to the current argument, primarily to raise their personal citation count — self-serving self-citation rather than a citation that does real argumentative work.
- Not an instance
Two authors, or two journals, agreeing to reciprocally cite each other's work at an inflated rate specifically to boost citation-based metrics such as Journal Impact Factor — citation stacking, a form of citation manipulation that Clarivate's JCR monitors and can suppress journals over.
Editorial commentary
Self-citation is the citing of one’s own previously published work — an article, dataset, preprint, protocol, or other output — within a new manuscript. It is an ordinary and often necessary part of scholarly writing, and the mistake most often made about it is treating the act itself as suspect. What matters is not that a reference points back at the author but whether the reference does real work in the argument.
When self-citation is legitimate
A self-citation is doing its job when removing it would leave the paper worse. The recurring legitimate cases are:
- Method reuse. Citing your own earlier methods paper rather than re-describing a validated protocol in full, so the detailed procedure is locatable without being repeated in every subsequent paper.
- Building on prior results. Establishing what the new work extends, replicates, or corrects. Failing to cite your own directly relevant prior work is itself a problem — it can leave the new paper looking more novel than it is, and in the extreme becomes self-plagiarism or redundant publication.
- Programme continuity. Situating a study within a sustained line of research, especially where the same cohort, instrument, or field site is involved and the reader needs the earlier description to interpret the new one.
- Data and materials. Citing your own deposited dataset, code, or preprint, which is increasingly required rather than merely permitted.
In all of these the self-citation is subject to exactly the same standard as any other reference, and is formatted the same way under whichever style the journal uses.
When it becomes citation manipulation
COPE‘s discussion document on citation manipulation gives the clearest statement of the boundary. It characterises manipulative citation as “behaviours intended to inflate citation counts for personal gain, such as excessive self-citation of an authors’ own work, excessive citation to the journal publishing the citing article, or excessive citation between journals in a coordinated manner.”
Its key point is a test, not a count: citation manipulation is a problem when references do not contribute to the scholarly content of the article, and are included solely to increase citations. COPE adds that any party which includes or requests to add citations where the motivations are merely self-promotional violates publication ethics — which puts authors, reviewers and editors under the same rule.
The three patterns
- Author self-citation. Padding an introduction or discussion with one’s own tangentially related papers to raise a personal citation count or h-index.
- Coercive citation. An editor or reviewer requiring the author to add citations to the reviewing journal, or to the reviewer’s own work, as a condition of acceptance, without identifying a substantive gap in the argument. COPE’s framing catches this explicitly: requesting the addition of citations for self-promotional motives is a violation on the requester’s side, and it puts the author in an unfair position because refusing may cost them the acceptance.
- Citation stacking. Two or more journals, or two or more authors, reciprocally citing each other at an inflated rate specifically to move citation-based metrics such as the Journal Impact Factor. Because the citations are distributed across parties, no single article looks obviously abnormal; the pattern is visible only at the journal or group level.
Consequences
COPE notes that penalties for citation manipulation “could include removal of editors from editorial roles, or removal or rejection of journals from citation indexes.” That second consequence is the one with financial and reputational weight: citation indexes operate editorial-suppression processes for titles whose self-citation or stacking patterns are anomalous, and a suppressed title loses its published impact metric for that year. At the individual level, journals may require citations to be removed before acceptance, and some publishers now screen reference lists for coercive-citation patterns during peer review.
What this means in practice
- For authors: cite your own work when the reader needs it, and be able to say in one sentence what each self-citation contributes. There is no universal numeric ceiling, and a high self-citation rate is normal in a small, specialised subfield — the defensible position is relevance, not a ratio.
- For reviewers: if you recommend adding references, say why the argument needs them. Recommending your own work is not prohibited, but it must be justified on substance and disclosed.
- For editors: COPE’s advice is to have a stated policy on appropriate levels of self-citation for authors and reviewers, so that reference-list requests during review can be measured against something written down rather than negotiated case by case.
The related but distinct concept is self-plagiarism — reusing your own text or data without disclosure. Self-citation is the correct remedy for that problem, not an instance of it: citing your own prior publication is precisely how reuse is made transparent.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is self-citation unethical?
No, not in itself. It is standard scholarly practice and is often required for the paper to be intelligible. It becomes an ethics problem only when references are added that do not contribute to the article’s scholarly content and exist mainly to raise citation counts.
How much self-citation is too much?
There is no agreed threshold, and COPE’s guidance frames the issue as relevance rather than proportion. A high rate can be entirely legitimate in a narrow field where the author’s group has produced most of the prior work; a low rate can still include manipulative citations. Editors are advised to set and publish their own policy rather than apply an unstated ratio.
What is coercive citation?
It is an editor or reviewer pressing an author to add citations — typically to the reviewing journal or to the reviewer’s own papers — as a condition of favourable review, without identifying a genuine gap. COPE treats requesting citations for merely self-promotional motives as a publication-ethics violation by the person making the request.
What is citation stacking?
Coordinated reciprocal citation between journals or between authors at an inflated rate, intended to move citation-based metrics. It is harder to detect than individual self-citation because the inflation is spread across several parties, and it is one of the patterns citation indexes screen for.
Does self-citation affect the h-index and Impact Factor?
Yes — self-citations count in raw citation totals, so they feed the h-index, and citations from articles in the same journal feed that journal’s Impact Factor. This is exactly why both metrics are commonly reported alongside self-citation-excluded variants, and why anomalous rates attract index-level scrutiny.
References
- COPE Council, COPE Discussion Document: Citation Manipulation, July 2019, https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.3.1, publicationethics.org
- ICMJE, Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, icmje.org
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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