Scientific reporting, Research integrity, Epidemiology, Bias

“Selective citation and its consequences”

Scientific publications are a key element in scientific communication. An important aspect of an academic publication is citing previous articles. However, the great amount of publications that are available, inevitably lead to selective use of citations. We studied which factors influence the selection of citations in three research fields. We found that positive studies are cited more compared to negative studies. Additionally, the selection of citations was mostly related to the author of the publication instead of the quality of the publication, for example authors were more likely to cite their own work instead of the work of others. This is important information in understanding how knowledge develops and to increase the trustworthiness of scientific knowledge since this is used as a basis for policy decisions or medical treatments.