Coercive citation
As early as 1999, in a landmark essay Scientific Communication – A Vanity Fair?, Georg Franck criticized citation counts as creating a marketplace where "success in science is rewarded with attention".In particular, he warned of a future "shadow market" where journal editors might inflate citation counts by requiring spurious references.[4] When an author submits a manuscript for publication in a scientific journal, the editor may request that the article's citations be expanded before it will be published.The practice of coercive citation is risky, as it may damage the reputation of the journal, and it hence has the potential of actually reducing the impact factor.[5] In 2012, Wilhite and Fong published results of a comprehensive survey of 6,700 scientists and academics in economics, sociology, psychology, and multiple business disciplines.Coercive citation is primarily targeted at younger researchers with less senior academic ranks and at papers with a smaller number of authors in order to have the greatest effect on the impact factor.