Self-citation and Self-reference: Credibility and Promotion in Academic Publication

Author self-citation has long been of interest to those working in informetrics for what it reveals about the publishing behavior of individuals and their relationships within academic networks. While this research has produced interesting insights, it typically assumes either that self-citation is a neutral form of reporting not unlike references to others’ work or an unsavory kind of academic egotism. By examining self-citation in a wider context of self-mention, however, the phenomenon can be seen as part of a more comprehensive rhetorical strategy for emphasizing a writer’s personal contribution to a piece of research and strengthening his or her knowledge claims, research credibility, and wider standing in the discipline. These meanings are not easily revealed through quantitative bibliometric methods and require careful text analyses and discourse-based interviews with academics. In this paper I explore the use of self-citation and authorial mention in a corpus of 240 research articles and 800 abstracts in eight disciplines. Through an analysis of these texts and interviews with expert informants I show how self-mention is used and the ways these uses reflect both the promotional strategies of individuals and the epistemological practices of their disciplines.