Paper Boys

Episode 54

Are self-citations a problem for science?

How can you really track the impact of research?

Tracking the productivity and impact of research has always been problematic. Especially in the highly competitive environment of today where hiring and promotions can be tied to a single performance metric such as “total number of citations” or “h-index.” The problem is that these metrics don’t tell the full story of productivity. Different disciplines in science publish papers at different rates. And many times, your new papers are required to cite your old papers to avoid self-plagiarism. So what are we to do to understand scientific impact? Join us this week as James and Charlie dive into a new investigation on a more nuanced way of looking at citations.

Check out the journal article available here and the Nature News article here.

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