Citation Policy

1. Policy Statement

Accurate and responsible citation is essential to scholarly communication. Authors must acknowledge the work of others appropriately, provide complete and accurate references, and avoid citation practices that may mislead readers or distort the scholarly record.

Citations should support the scientific context of the manuscript and reflect genuine intellectual contributions rather than serving promotional or inappropriate purposes.

2. Scope

This policy applies to all references, citations, bibliographies, footnotes, endnotes, datasets, software citations, standards, supplementary materials, and other referenced scholarly resources included in manuscripts submitted to Impaxon journals.

3. Principles of Responsible Citation

Authors should cite sources that are directly relevant to the research, accurately represent previous findings, and provide readers with the information necessary to understand the scholarly background of the work.

References should be selected on the basis of scholarly relevance, scientific quality, and contribution to the subject rather than personal, institutional, commercial, or editorial interests.

4. Accuracy of Citations

Authors are responsible for ensuring that every citation is accurate, complete, and correctly matched to the cited source. References should contain correct author names, article titles, journal titles, publication year, volume, issue, page numbers where applicable, and persistent identifiers such as DOIs whenever available.

Authors should verify all references before submission and ensure that cited works genuinely support the statements made in the manuscript.

5. Appropriate Citation Practices

Citations should acknowledge prior work fairly and objectively. Authors should cite original sources where appropriate and avoid unnecessary secondary citations when the original publication is available.

References should reflect the current state of knowledge while recognising important foundational studies that remain relevant to the research.

6. Self-Citation

Authors may cite their own previously published work where it is directly relevant to the manuscript. Self-citations should be limited to those that are scientifically justified and necessary for understanding the research.

Excessive or unnecessary self-citation intended primarily to increase citation counts, improve bibliometric indicators, or promote particular authors is not appropriate.

7. Citation Manipulation

Citation manipulation includes any attempt to influence citation metrics through inappropriate, excessive, irrelevant, or misleading citation practices.

Examples include excessive self-citation, reciprocal citation agreements, citation stacking, coercive citation, adding irrelevant references solely to increase citation counts, or requesting unnecessary citations without scholarly justification.

Impaxon does not support editorial practices that require authors to cite specific journals, editors, reviewers, or publishers unless such citations are scientifically justified.

8. Citation of Artificial Intelligence-Generated Content

Artificial intelligence tools may assist authors in preparing manuscripts, but AI systems cannot be treated as authors or primary scholarly sources. Authors should follow the journal's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy when using AI-assisted tools.

Where AI use is disclosed, authors remain responsible for verifying all references, factual statements, and supporting literature generated or suggested by AI tools.

9. Citation of Datasets, Software, Standards, and Preprints

Authors are encouraged to cite datasets, software, protocols, standards, repositories, and other research outputs where they contribute directly to the reported work. Such citations should include persistent identifiers, version information, repository details, or other appropriate metadata whenever available.

Preprints may be cited where appropriate, provided they are clearly identified as preprints and have not been presented as peer-reviewed publications.

10. Citation of Retracted or Corrected Articles

Authors should avoid citing retracted articles as evidence unless the citation is necessary to discuss the retraction, history of the research, or a specific issue related to the article.

If a retracted article is cited, authors must clearly indicate its retracted status in the manuscript and explain why the citation is necessary.

Authors should also take care when citing articles that have been corrected, updated, or are subject to an expression of concern.

11. Reviewer and Editor Responsibilities

Reviewers and editors may suggest additional citations where they are scientifically relevant and necessary to improve the manuscript.

Reviewers and editors must not request citations for personal benefit, journal promotion, citation manipulation, or any reason unrelated to the scholarly quality of the manuscript.

12. Editorial Assessment

Editors may assess whether references are accurate, relevant, balanced, and appropriate for the manuscript. Manuscripts may be returned for revision if references are inaccurate, incomplete, misleading, excessive, or inappropriate.

Where citation manipulation is suspected, editors may request clarification, require revision, reject the manuscript, or take other action consistent with Impaxon's publication ethics policies.

13. Non-Compliance

Failure to follow responsible citation practices may result in revision, rejection, correction, expression of concern, retraction, or other editorial action depending on the nature and seriousness of the issue.

Serious or intentional citation manipulation may be treated as a publication ethics concern.

14. Changes to this Policy

Impaxon may revise this policy periodically to reflect developments in responsible citation practices, publication ethics guidance, indexing standards, and scholarly publishing best practices.