Excessive reviewer self-citations

Reviewers are expected to point out relevant work that has not been cited in the manuscript, and use citations to explain where elements of the work have been previously reported. When writing a report, reviewers should justify any literature references suggested for inclusion in the work.

Citation suggestions should add value, and should not be unfairly biased towards an individual, group or organisation. The practice of including superfluous references, including to the reviewer’s own work, to promote and inflate citation scores is unethical. We will always offer reviewers the opportunity to amend their reports if we believe that citation suggestions could be more balanced; however, the Editor reserves the right to exclude citation suggestions from reports if these are considered to be potential acts of citation manipulation, and/or to protect reviewer anonymity.