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Are journal and author self-citations a visibility strategy?

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Abstract

This study is aimed at analysing self-citation as a strategy used by journals and authors regarding first citations in of Latin-American psychology journals between 2012 and 2016. A total of 8977 citations received were analysed for a total of 2403 papers published in the 19 Latin-American psychology journals collected in the 2016 WoS (included in the 2015 JCR edition). The results indicate that there is an effect of the first self-citations on the number of citations, the journal self-citations and the author’s. It is observed that the journal self-citations and first journal self-citations are more important for the journals located in first quartiles, versus author’s self-citations. The importance of the type of self-citation differs between some publications and others, being the journal self-citations those that greater differences present between journals throughout the period studied. The self-consumption of information, according to the number of articles with self-citations, varies between the journals, ranging between 88.8 and 55.8%. It can be concluded that self-citations and first self-citations play an important role in the citation of the works and in the increase of their visibility.

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Correspondence to Francisco González-Sala.

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González-Sala, F., Osca-Lluch, J. & Haba-Osca, J. Are journal and author self-citations a visibility strategy?. Scientometrics 119, 1345–1364 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-019-03101-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-019-03101-3

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