CONSISTENT SELF CITATION ANALYSIS OF NELSON TANSU

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SELF CITATION LETTERS Vol 1, April 2011.

CONSISTENT SELF CITATION

ANALYSIS OF NELSON TANSU

Peter Raisin

Self citation analyst.

Abstract - Self-citation, where an author cite his own works, account for a significant portion

of total citations. Self citation or self referencing can be a result of an authors social and

psychological need for personal gratification. It is used as a tactical tool to get famous, in the

struggle for visibility and scientific authority. This paper provides a consistent self citation

analysis on a famous self-proclaimed youngest professor in the history, Nelson Tansu. The

analysis reveals the author has a high self citation, able to cite himself 10 to 40 times in a

publication. Tansu deliberately consistently cite himself in large volume to increase his citation

number. The activity of self citation is more than 50% of the number of citations he received.

This consistent self citation doubled his h-index.

Keywords: AlGaN quantum wells; deep UV lasers; III-Nitride; laser diodes; optical gain;

broadband terrahertz; dipole radiation; light-emitting diodes; efficiency-droop.

I. INTRODUCTION

A self-citation is a reference an author provide in a document to other documents written

by himself. Self-citation, where an author cite his own works, account for a significant portion

of all citations. Self citation or self referencing can be a result from the cumulative nature of

individual research, and the need for personal gratification. The value of self-citation is used a

rhetorical and tactical tool in the struggle for visibility and to become famous [1].

Author self-citation is of interest because it reveals about the social behavior of the

author. Self-citation is a form of academic egotism, selfishness and self-centeredness [2]. It is a

strategy for emphasizing a researchers contribution to a piece of research and strengthening his

or her knowledge claims, research credibility, and wider standing in the discipline. It is used for

the promotional strategies of the individual [3].

Nelson Tansu made claims that he is the youngest professor in the US history. He also

listed having more than 200 publications and more than 1200 citations. This research found out


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whether the publication of Nelson Tansu is really important, have a high impact, or is this really

just because of high self citation. A consistent self citation analysis is performed rigorously.

II. METHODOLOGYThe research was conducted in the OSU Science and Engineering Library, Columbus

OH, during Spring 2011.A database search of Nelson Tansu publication and citation is

done on Scopus. Scopus is a database of abstracts and citations for scholarly journal articles.

Scopus also offers author profiles which cover affiliations, number of publications and their

bibliographic data, references and details on the number of citations each published document

has received. A self consistent citation analysis is performed.

The author Tansu N was identified as the right author at the right affiliation. The

number of publications and their references and details on the number of citations each published

document was retrieved from year 2000 to 2011. In addition, the number of citations that is

without self citation was recorded.

III. NUMBER OF PUBLICATIONS

The total number of publications for author Nelson Tansu recorded in Scopus up to

Spring 2011 was 153. Fig. 1. Tansu showed the publication each year since 1999. Tansu had

start publishing since 1999 from his PhD at University of Wisconsin, Madison. His publication

increased until year 2005, but dropped in 2006 and 2007. Since 2008, it jumps suddenly until

2010, with more than 20 publications per year. See also Table 1.


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Fig. 1 The number of publications by Nelson Tansu.

IV. NUMBER OF SELF CITATIONS

The total number of citation recorded by Scopus for all of Tansu publication up to Spring

2011 was 1253. The recorded h-index was 20, which means of the 153 documents considered,20 have been cited at least 20 times.The h-index is an indicator of the authors productivity and

impact through citation. A person has an h-index ofh if he has published h papers of which each

would have been cited by others at least h times.

In Scopus, there was an option to exclude from citation overview Self citations of all

authors. This is done for the Tansus record. the result of total number of citation by other

people (without self citation) is 601. The 601 citations came from 401 other publications,

meaning that normally other people just cited Tansus publication on average 1 to 2 times in a

publication. The h-index is just 13, which means of the 153 documents considered, 20 have been

cited at least 20 times.

This analysis meant that of all of total 1253 citation, 652 citation is self referencing or

self citation. This means 52% of the citation is not the recognition by another people, but a result

of self citation. The action of self citation results in increase h index for Tansu. The real h-index

was just 13, but with self citation jumped to 20. This strategy of self citation was to increase h-

index of the author. The h-index is very easy to manipulate by self citation.


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Table 1. Citation statistic of Nelson Tansu from Scopus.

Including self

citation

Without self citation

Number of papers 153 153

Number of citation 1253 601

Citation per paper 8.19 3.93

h-index 20 13

Fig. 2 The number of citations received by Tansus publication every year since 2000. The

blue line is the total number of citation received. The red line is the number of citation received

excluding any self citation by the author. The green line is the number of self citation by Tansu.

Fig. 2 showed the number of citations to Tansu publication each year from year 2000,

when he was still doing his PhD at University of Wisconsin. The blue line was the total number


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of citation Tansu received for all of his publications every year. The red line was the number

of citation Tansu received from researchers other than his own publication. The red line was the

real indicator of how important is Tansu work. If Tansu publication was important, many other

researchers will give citation. And the blue line was the self citation, meaning the citation made

by Tansu himself.

From the red line, the real number of citation, Tansu citation increased from year 2000

to 2005 and it peaked. Up until 2005 his work was somewhat important and referenced by other

people. This meant Tansu work from his PhD at Wisconsin is important. After 2003, he moved

and become the self-proclaimed youngest professor at Lehigh, the red line decreased sharply.

This meant Tansu work was not important anymore, of no relevance and consequence. Tansu

real impact was declining sharply every year.

The green line, the self citation line, is rising slowly after year 2000 but stayed constant

until year 2007. This is when Tansu is panicked as his citation is getting low. The green line

shoots up from 2007 to 2010 meaning the self citation activity increase every ear. This reflected

that the number of citation dropped sharply in 2007. Tansu is desperate to get attention. So hekeep increasing his self citation activity as showed in the green line. This is the most important

finding in the history, the self consistent citation.

V. EVIDENCE OF HIGH SELF CITATION

There were 2 different ways to seek for evidence of high self citation. The first was to see

in each publication how many self referencing in a publication. Self referencing is the number

of references Tansu provide in a document to other documents written by himself. The examples

were: Tansu, N., Zhao, H., Zhang, J., et al 2011. Proceedings of SPIE - The International

Society for Optical Engineering 7954, art. no. 795418. This publication has 40 self

referencing.

Li, X.-H., Tong, H., Zhao, H., Tansu, N. 2010 . Proceedings of SPIE -The International

Society for Optical Engineering 7597, art. no.75970H. This publication has 23 self

referencing.

Tong, H., Zhang, J., Zhao, H., Liu, G., Handara, V.A., Herbsommer, J.A., Tansu, N.

2010 Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering

7602, art. no. 76020U. This publication has 19 self referencing.

Zhao, H., Liu, G., Tansu, N. Applied Physics Letters 97 (13), art. no. 131114. This

publication has 16 self referencing.

The examples showed that Tansu in total has 10 to 40 self referencing in a publication.

Each publication reference himself up to 40 times. This is an excessive self referencing.

The second way to track self citation was to see how many times Tansu create citation


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to a publication. If a publication received many citations by the author himself, it is a direct

evidence that the author manipulates the citation volume and h index. The examples were:

Tansu N., Kirsch N.J., Mawst L.J. 2002, Applied Physics Letters, (14) 2523. This

publication is cited 41 times by Tansu

Tansu N., Mawst L.J. 2003, IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics. This publication is

cited 12 times by Tansu.

Ee Y.-K., Arif R.A., Tansu N., Kumnorkaew P., Gilchrist J.F. 2007, Applied Physics

Letters. This publication is cited 11 times by Tansu.

The examples showed that Tansu can cumulatively cite his own article up to 41 times to increase

the volume of citations.

VI. CONCLUSION

Considering the resort to increase citation and h-index statistic, Nelson Tansu deliberately

consistently cite himself to increase his citation volume. This cause his h-index to increase

almost 50%. The real impact of Nelson Tansu work is declining after year 2005, no one cares

about his work. However Nelson Tansu self citation keep increasing every year since 2007. Self

citation is a result to seek fame and fortune and to make the author looks good and manipulates h

index. The analysis reveals the author has a high self citation, able to cite himself 10 to 40 times

in a publication. The activity of self citation is more than 50% of the number of citations he

received. As a result of self consistent elf citation his h index increase from 13 to 20.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to acknowledge helpful technical discussions with Prof. LJM regarding

the calculation and analysis of self citation. The author declares no conflict of interest with the

subject of this paper.

REFERENCES

[1] Snyder, H. & Bonzi, S. (1998). Patterns of self-citation across disciplines (1980-1989).

Journal of Information Science, 24(6), 431-435.[2] Hyland, K. (2003). Self-citation and self-reference: Credibility and promotion in academic

publication. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 54(3),

251-259.

[3] Lawani, S. M. (1982). On the heterogeneity and classification of author self-citations. Journal

of the American Society for Information Science, 33(5), 281-284.

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CONSISTENT SELF CITATION ANALYSIS OF NELSON TANSU