CITATION POLICY

1 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 Journal of the Blue Economy and Sustainable Energy Development (JBESED).

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 JBESED where not academically necessary

1.4 Acceptable Self-Citation Thresholds

JBESED 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 (JBESED 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 JBESED 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

JBESED 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

JBESED 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 violations of publication ethics under COPE standards.

5 Transparency and Reporting

JBESED 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

6.1 Mandatory Referencing Style

The Journal of the Blue Economy and Sustainable Energy Development (JBESED) adopts the APA 7th edition referencing style for all manuscript submissions.

Manuscripts submitted in any alternative referencing style (including IEEE, Harvard, MLA, Chicago, or Vancouver) will be returned prior to peer review (technical screening stage).

6.2 In-Text Citation Format

All in-text citations must strictly follow the APA author–date system.

Examples:

• Single author: (Smith, 2022)
• Two authors: (Smith & Adeyemi, 2023)
• Three or more authors: (Smith et al., 2024)
• Multiple citations: (Adeyemi, 2021; Johnson & Lee, 2023; Smith et al., 2024)
• Same author, same year: (Smith, 2022a, 2022b)

Narrative citation:
Smith (2022) demonstrates that marine governance systems require integrated policy frameworks.

All citations must correspond exactly to entries in the reference list.

6.3 Reference List Requirements

All references must be listed alphabetically under the heading References and must comply fully with APA 7th edition standards.

Each entry must include:

• Author(s)
• Year of publication
• Title in sentence case
• Source (journal/book/report)
• Volume, issue, and page range (where applicable)
• All references must include DOI where available

Additional requirements:

• Journal titles and volume numbers must be italicised
• Reference list must be double-checked for consistency and completeness
• All in-text citations must appear in the reference list and vice versa

6.4 DOI and Digital Source Standards

Where available, all references must include a DOI presented as a clickable URL:

https://doi.org/xxxxx

• Non-DOI references must include stable URLs or publisher identifiers
• Retrieval dates are required for content that is likely to change (e.g., reports, web pages, institutional updates)

6.5 Source Eligibility and Integrity Standards

JBESED permits the following reference types:

• Peer-reviewed journal articles (preferred)
• Academic books and book chapters
• Conference proceedings (peer-reviewed only)
• Institutional reports (FAO, UN, World Bank, etc.)
• Datasets with DOIs (e.g., Zenodo, Dryad, Figshare)

The following are restricted:

• Non-scholarly websites without institutional backing
• Opinion blogs or non-peer-reviewed commentary
• Unverified preprints (allowed only if clearly labelled)

6.6 Consistency Rules

• Only APA 7th edition is permitted throughout the manuscript
• Mixing citation styles is strictly prohibited
• Reference managers (Zotero, EndNote, Mendeley) must be configured to APA 7th edition output style

6.7 Compliance Enforcement

Manuscripts that fail to comply with referencing requirements will:

• Returned for mandatory correction before peer review, or
• Rejected if inconsistencies persist after revision