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  • NEWS FEATURE

Hundreds of extreme self-citing scientists revealed in new database

Some highly cited academics seem to be heavy self-promoters — but researchers warn against policing self-citation.
  1. Richard Van Noorden
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  2. Dalmeet Singh Chawla
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The world’s most-cited researchers, according to newly released data, are a curiously eclectic bunch. Nobel laureates and eminent polymaths rub shoulders with less familiar names, such as Sundarapandian Vaidyanathan from Chennai in India. What leaps out about Vaidyanathan and hundreds of other researchers is that many of the citations to their work come from their own papers, or from those of their co-authors.

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Nature 572, 578-579 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02479-7

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