Citation Governance Policy (Self-Citation Control)

1.1 Purpose

This Citation Governance Policy establishes clear rules for managing self-citation practices, citation integrity, and citation diversity within the African Journal of Offshore, Marine Engineering and Naval Architecture (AJOMENA).

The aim is to ensure that citation practices:

• Reflect genuine scholarly influence
• Prevent citation manipulation or citation stacking
• Promote international research visibility
• Align with Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, and COPE ethical publishing standards

1.2 Scope of the Policy

This policy applies to:

• All submitted manuscripts
• Published articles
• Editorial content (editorials, reviews, special issues)
• Authors, reviewers, and editors

1.3 Definition of Self-Citation

Self-citation refers to:

• Citations of works authored by the same author(s)
• Citations of works from the same institution or research group
• Citations of previous publications from AJOMENA where not academically necessary

1.4 Acceptable Self-Citation Thresholds

AJOMENA adopts the following controlled limits:

1.4 1 Author Self-Citation

• Should generally not exceed 20–30% of total references
• Must be scientifically justified and contextually relevant
• Excessive self-citation without justification is considered unethical practice

1.4.2 Journal Self-Citation (AJOMENA citations)

• Should not exceed 15–25% of total references
• Must only be used where:
• There is direct methodological continuity
• The citation is essential for technical development
• Prior AJOMENA work is genuinely foundational

1.4.3 Institutional Citation Concentration

• Citations from a single institution or research cluster must not dominate reference lists
• Diversity of sources is required across countries and publishers

2 Citation Quality Requirements

All citations must:

• Be academically relevant
• Be peer-reviewed where possible
• Represent international scholarship
• Avoid excessive reliance on:
• conference self-publications
• non-indexed journals (and should not exceed 10% where it is unavoidable)
• internal reports without peer review

3 Citation Diversity Requirement

AJOMENA mandates that manuscripts must demonstrate:

• Minimum 60% of citations from external institutions
• Minimum 40% international sources (outside author’s country or institution)
• Inclusion of multi-jurisdictional research literature where applicable

This ensures global integration and reduces citation insularity.

4 Editorial Monitoring Mechanism

AJOMENA will implement the following controls:

4.1 Pre-Publication Review

• Automated citation screening (self-citation detection)
• Manual editorial review of reference balance
• Flagging of citation concentration patterns

4.2 Post-Acceptance Audit

• Citation pattern analysis per issue
• Monitoring journal self-citation rate annually
• Detection of citation clustering across authors

4.3 Editorial Intervention

Where excessive self-citation is detected, editors may:

• Request revision of references
• Require substitution with external sources
• Reject manuscript if manipulation is suspected

4.4 Ethical Restrictions

The following practices are strictly prohibited:

• Artificial inflation of citations to editor or journal publications
• Citation coercion by reviewers or editors
• Reciprocal citation agreements between authors
• Excessive referencing of non-essential prior work to increase metrics
• “Citation padding” unrelated to research content

Such practices are considered publication ethics violations under COPE standards.

5 Transparency and Reporting

AJOMENA will publish an annual citation governance report including:

• Average self-citation rate per issue
• Journal self-citation percentage
• Institutional citation concentration trends
• Geographic diversity of citations
• Any corrective editorial actions taken

This ensures alignment with Web of Science transparency expectations.

5.1 Editorial Responsibility

Editors must:

• Avoid recommending unnecessary citations to their own work
• Disclose conflicts of interest related to citations
• Ensure citation decisions are based solely on scholarly merit
• Recuse themselves when citation bias risk exists

5.2 Author Responsibility

Authors must:

• Ensure citation selection is academically justified
• Avoid excessive self-citation
• Disclose any prior related publications
• Maintain citation balance and international relevance

5.3 Policy Enforcement

Violations of this policy may result in:

• Manuscript rejection
• Mandatory revision prior to review
• Post-publication correction
• Retraction in severe cases
• Temporary or permanent submission bans for repeat violations

5.4 Alignment with International Standards

This policy is aligned with:

• COPE Core Practices
• Web of Science journal selection criteria
• Scopus content selection standards
• Best practices in scholarly citation ethics

6 Citation Style Policy

AJOMENA enforces a standardised referencing system to ensure consistency, accuracy, and ease of indexing across all published articles.

6.1 Mandatory Referencing Style

• AJOMENA strictly accepts IEEE referencing style only for all submissions
• Manuscripts using any other citation format (e.g., APA, Harvard, MLA) will be returned for correction prior to review

6.2 In-Text Citation Format

• All in-text citations must appear in numeric format
• Citations should be sequential and enclosed in square brackets:

Examples:

• Single citation: [1]
• Multiple citations: [1], [2], [3]
• Range citation: [1–3]

Citations must correspond exactly to the reference list order.

6.3 Reference List Requirements

• All references must be listed in IEEE format at the end of the manuscript
• Each entry must be numbered according to first appearance in the text
• Full bibliographic details are required for all sources

6.4 DOI Inclusion

• Where available, all references must include a Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
• DOI links must be active and correctly formatted
• This enhances traceability, indexing, and citation validation

6.5 Consistency and Formatting Rules

• Only one citation style (IEEE) is permitted throughout the manuscript
• Mixing of citation styles is strictly prohibited
• Automated reference managers must be configured to IEEE format before submission

6.5.1 Compliance Enforcement

Manuscripts that do not comply with this policy may:

• Be returned for technical revision before peer review
• Experience delayed processing
• Be rejected if inconsistencies persist