Hidden dangers of a 'citation culture'

Abstract

The influence of the journal impact factor and the effect of a 'citation culture' on science and scientists have been discussed extensively (Lawrence 2007; Curr Biol 17:R583-585). Nevertheless, many still believe that the number of citations a paper receives provides some measure of its quality. This belief may be unfounded, however, as there are 2 substantial areas of error that can distort a citation count or any metric based on a citation count. One is the deliberate manipulation of the system by scientists trying to ensure the highest possible number of cites to their papers; this has been examined elsewhere (Lawrence 2003; Nature 422:259-261). The second area of inaccuracy is inherent to how papers are cited, indexed and searched for. It is this latter, lesser known, source of error that we will investigate here. © Inter-Research 2008.