Self-citations

[Rousseau Ronald]

It is clear that on the issue of self-citations no position is always right or
always wrong. In that sense Quentin Burrell's formula (a formula I sympathise
with) could be used as a citation lower bound, while counting all citations
as equal (self-citations or not) could yield an upper bound.

Note (in defense of the upper bound and in addition to Ackerman's points) that
'officially' receiving a self-citation (say in an evaluation exercise) is not an
entirely trivial matter. First, you must write an article (how many authors have
only one article to their credit?), and second it must be published in a journal
covered by ISI (the meaning - here - of the word 'official'). Again, and
depending on the field, not always a triviality.

Ronald Rousseau