Analysis of Citation Patterns and Impact of Predatory Sources in the Nursing Literature

Abstract

Purpose This study was undertaken to learn how predatory journal articles were cited in articles published in legitimate (nonpredatory) nursing journals. The extent of citation and citation patterns were studied. Design A two‐phase approach was used. Methods In Phase 1, 204 articles published in legitimate nursing journals that cited a predatory publication were randomly selected for analysis from a list of 814 articles with predatory journal citations. In Phase 2, the four predatory journal articles that were cited most frequently were analyzed further to examine their citation patterns. Findings The majority (n = 148, 72.55%) of the articles that cited a predatory publication were research reports. Most commonly, the predatory article was only cited once (n = 117, 61.58%). Most (n = 158, 82.72%) of the predatory articles, though, were used substantively, that is, to provide a basis for the study or methods, describe the results, or explain the findings. The four articles in Phase 2 generated 38 citations in legitimate journals, published from 2011 to 2019, demonstrating persistence in citation. An evaluation of the quality of these articles was mixed. Conclusions The results of this study provide an understanding of the use and patterns of citations to predatory articles in legitimate nursing journals. Authors who choose predatory journals as the channel to disseminate their publications devalue the work that publishers, editors, and peer reviewers play in scholarly dissemination. Likewise, those who cite these works are also contributing to the problem of predatory publishing in nursing. Clinical Relevance Nurse authors should not publish their work in predatory journals and should avoid citing articles from these journals, which disseminates the content through the scholarly nursing literature.

Wilfully submitting to and publishing in predatory journals - a covert form of research misconduct?

“…An attractive feature of some predatory journals is the fact that they can be indexed in reputable databases and even acquire an impact factor (20)(21)(22). Although recent analyses suggest that articles in predatory journals are in general poorly cited, ranging from 2.25 to 10 citations per article and therefore have little impact in a field, these articles could nonetheless influence those considered as non-experts (23)(24)(25)(26). This concept of citation contamination, as explored by Anderson, not only propagates potentially flawed and un-vetted science, but also dilutes the impact and importance of genuine, legitimate publications (20).…”

Drapieżne czasopisma są legitymizowane przez artykuły w czasopismach z impact factor

“…(podobnie jak my) korzystali z ostatniej dostępnej wersji listy z 2017 r. Należy jednak 63 Björk et al (2020). 64 Oermann et al (2020). 65 Oermann et al (2019).…”

Statistical Analysis of Articles Published in <i>China CDC Weekly </i> — Worldwide, 2019–2020

“…Because downloads and views were not normally distributed, we represented central tendencies with medians and quartiles (P 25 , P 75 ). We used VOSviewer 1.6.15 (Leiden university, Leiden, Netherlands)to illustrate author collaboration networks with network visualization maps composed of nodes and links based on the ris file type (file type (3)(4). In the network visualization, authors were represented by a label and a circle.…”