Citations and Successful Journal Publication

Citations and Successful Journal Publication
It would be rare indeed for an academic or scientific journal not to be pleased when articles submitted to them include citations to papers already published in earlier volumes of the journal. Such intra-journal citations are reflected in citation reports just as citations to papers published outside a journal are, so they help improve the impact factor of the journal concerned. Impact factors have proven so important to scholars and journals alike in recent years that it is not unheard of for an editor to ask authors submitting their work to include citations to articles previously published in the journal in order to earn acceptance for their papers. This is obviously a questionable practice and should not be adopted by an author solely for the purpose of gaining a publication. In many instances, however, referring to other papers published in the journal to which you choose to submit your work makes perfect scholarly sense and is therefore entirely legitimate.

For one, it is likely that you have chosen the journal to which you intend to submit your writing because it publishes academic or scientific work that in both content and approach is similar to your own. Ideally, this choice will be based upon a personal familiarity with the articles published by the journal, and these articles may present agreement or disagreement in relation to your work – agreement or disagreement that can be cited or quoted as you construct your argument and write your paper. A group of articles that constitute an intellectual debate within a single volume or over several volumes of a journal provides the perfect opportunity for meaningful citations. The precise ways in which your paper contributes to such a debate can be highlighted in the covering letter you include with your submission, rendering your article more appealing by ensuring that the editor notices the connections and citations.

It is always best, of course, if intra-journal citations, like all other citations in a paper, are already present in the appropriate forms when you first submit your writing to a journal. However, if you are asked to include more citations, even the kind that obviously benefits the ratings of the journal concerned, it is possible to meet this request with integrity and without compromising your work. Reading and citing articles from the journal as you revise your paper is a valid approach, but only if the papers you cite are actually relevant to your discussion and useful for presenting and clarifying your argument. If they are not, you are citing them for the wrong reason, and there are two basic problems with doing so.

For one, many scholars will consider the practice unethical; secondly, such citations will compromise your work and will be spotted for what they are by the most sophisticated readers – the very readers whose respect you may wish to earn. Yet even if the request to make intra-journal citations comes your way for the wrong reasons, you can make the best of the situation by prioritising the scholarly integrity of your work and citing only what is truly useful and valid.