Dr. Strangelove or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the citations
aa r X i v : . [ c s . D L ] F e b DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOPWORRYING AND LOVE THE CITATIONS
ALBERTO SARACCO
Abstract.
Citations are getting more and more important in the careerof a researcher. But how to use them in the best possible way?This is a satirical paper, showing a bad trend currently happening incitation trends, due to intensive use of citation metrics.I am putting this on the arXiv and on Researchgate. Should you beinterested to publish this paper on a journal of which you are editor, letme know. What’s citations got to do with it?
In ancient times, citations in research papers were meant to allow readersto know two things: firstly the cited paper was somehow relevant to theresearch done in the paper, secondly the cited paper was a suggested readto the interested reader.But in the last 10 to 15 years, citations are meant to do something totallydifferent: to measure how good a researcher is. The more citation they get,the better the paper (or the researcher, or the group of research, or journal)is! Highly cited papers, individual and collective H-index, sheer number ofcitations, all theese became a clear and objective signal of being a goodresearcher.In Italy the number of citations comes in 2 different necessary conditionsin order to have a national habilitation (
ASN — Abilitazione ScientificaNazionale ): at least 2 out of 3 magical values, sheer number of citations, H -index (and number of published papers ), must be met by a researcherwho wants to apply to a habilitation to professorship. But Italy is justan example on how the objective numbers of citations (and papers) have acentral role in the researcher’s fundings and career. While once Academiawas about publish or perish , now things got tougher, now Academia is about publish (possibly in highly ranked journals) and get cited (a lot) or perish .One might object that this use of citations is totally different from whatthey were meant. And after all what’s citations got to do with it (the meritof the reasearcher)? Date : February 24, 2020.2010
Mathematics Subject Classification.
Primary 00A99, Secondary 91-01, 91C99.
Key words and phrases.
Citations, citation metrics, ethics and rules. Everything must be certified by Scopus or Isi-Web-Of-Science, which is a great idea,since they are private companies on whom the academic community has no control When the going gets tough...
Of course the previous objection is totally silly: we cannot pretend to livein the past and decide by ourselves what citations are meant for.We must totally change our point of view and accept the rules as they areand play according to the rules. After all rules are chosen so that people areencouraged to behave in a positive way. And also in this case it is working:more cites mean a better researcher? And indeed lately the number ofcitations is raising: always better researches, year after year.Whenever we have rules and players, we are in the kingdom of gametheory. Game theory always supposes the players to be rational players. Andwho can be more rational than a researcher? The rules and the rationalityof researchers totally accounts for the rise in citations we are experiencing.So the tough (and rational) researcher gets going by learning how toimplement in the best possible way the citations in his or her papers. Theoptimum would be a paper with no text and citations to all of your previousworks [1, 2, 3, 10, 16, 17, 27, 34, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48], butsomehow some old-schoolers make some resistance and do not allow suchperfect papers to be published.In this paper we want to show a method to go as near as possible to theoptimum, keeping in mind that if your paper does not get published, youare getting zero citations immediately and zero citations afterward.3.
All you need is love (and citations)
Obviously, the most citations of your works, no matter if already pub-lished, if pre-print [31, 32, 33, 42] or future [4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 20, 35, 43], youget to put in the bibliography, the better it is. And remember that alsocitations to pre-prints or future papers will work: you just have to remem-ber to show the citation to Scopus or Web Of Science. Many Universitieshave people whose work is partly to raise the citations of the Universityresearchers , so make sure you tell them about your future citations.So make sure you cite everything that you wrote or are writing or willwrite and is (even marginally) relevant to your paper!Of course a series of good practices to maximize citations includes (but isnot limited to) the salami slicing technique (divide a paper in several leastpublishable units) and putting a slight error in your paper you will have tocorrect with an errata later on.4. Spreading the love
But remember: love (and citations) is about sharing, so don’t be selfish.Don’t be shy and cite your own brother [24, 36, 49] or your youngercollaborator in need of an habilitation [28, 29, 30].You can even cite papers recently published in your University’s jour-nal [5, 21, 26], in order to raise its cite score and ranking; or papers fromyour Department’s colleagues [18, 19, 25] in order to raise the Department’sH-index. These two things are useful since these numbers are used, and Just think for a second how lovely useful this work is!
R. STRANGELOVE 3 possibly in the future will be used even more, to determine how good a De-partment is and how much fundings it will get. So, never forget to take anoccasion to raise these numbers.But also never forget that in order to get published, you have to convinceat least one referee and one editor. So carefully choose your editor andcite him or her [50, 51, 52]) and try to suggest a referee by citing him orher a lot (often referees are choosen between researchers cited in the paper)[53, 54, 55]. Remember that citations are love and everybody likes to feelloved. An editor or referee who can feel your love is more likely to acceptyour paper.Finally, cite some papers recently published in the journal you are sub-mitting your paper to [56, 57, 58]. This shows you truly believe that isan important journal. Moreover, if your paper gets published, the journalnumbers will get better.But of course not all citations are equal. The most effective citations arethose which increment the H-index of the researcher. Hence a researchershould know how to cite in order to maximize the probability of getting toa certain H-index in a given amount of time. Thus, in this paper I havechosen to give citations to other people in order to try to maximize theirH-indexes. 5.
Conclusions
Obviously, applying the above suggested way of conduct to your paper,after adding the really-related citations to your paper, you might end up witha several pages long bibliography. But that, rather than being a problem,is an objective index of how much high-quality research has been publishedlately.So don’t ever be distracted by emotionality and by a fake sense of integrityor morality: you are a tough researcher and should behave accordingly tothe rules, maximize the citations and spread the love.Of course, never forget to cite this paper whenever possible. Spread thelove!
Conflict of interests
The author declares that this paper, if published, will drastically increasehis citation numbers, having cited all of his past present and some of futureworks. This does not violate any ethics conduct as explained in the paperitself and it is moreover useful to exemplify the phenomenon we are studying.
Acknowledgments
The idea beneath this paper was born in a Facebook discussion of theauthor with Daniele Castorina and Marco Isopi. I wish to thank them, ofcourse by citing some of their papers [6, 13, 14, 15, 22, 23]. Let’s spread thelove!
ALBERTO SARACCO
Getting serious for a moment
Getting serious for a moment, all of the above is obviously something thatshould be totally avoided. It obscures the really relevant citations in a seaof irrelevant ones. Yet no one can deny it happens. Researchers tend toself-cite or group-cite much more, often the referee asks to add some veryimportant citations, usually all to articles by the same author.No one can deny the medium number of citations per paper rose a lotin the last 10-15 years. Why? Of course for the reasons highlighted in thispaper. Give a goal, and people will follow it.When rules are decided, this should be kept in mind. It does not matterwhether or not citations are a good tool to measure the goodness of a re-search. What it matters are the consequences of the rules. Rules should bechosen in order to have people behave in a better way. The ranking-maniawith an extensive use of citations proved itself to have bad consequences. Abetter method has to be thought.In order to make citations matter again, we should stop using them toevaluate papers, journals and researchers.
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Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica, Universit`a di Parma, ParcoArea delle Scienze 53/A, I-43124 Parma, Italy
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