Researchers from this group have a curious propensity for finishing their papers with a concluding sentence that is purely a Citation Delivery Vehicle' In at least one case, the heavily-burdened final sentence was not present in the version that peer-reviewers saw and was added at the proof stage. https://pubpeer.com/search?q="Jun+Zhao"+OR+"Zhiqin+Zheng"
"This work enlarges the application range of the persistent materials to the photocatalytic field, and provides new insights into other fields, such as the treatment of wastewater [46–48], electrocatalysis [49–51], and photocatalysis [52–55]"
Perhaps the authors could say more about the insights into other fields that might result from the present results.
Dear Hoya camphorifolia,
I have seen several comments on the reference list of the papers on Pubpeer, and I would admire your efforts in checking the reference list, which is often omitted by the readers, reviewers, and editors.
I can probably tell you why there are so many un-relevant references in these papers:
(1) some may be suggested by the reviewer, that they would ask to cite some " interesting" or "important" papers that are relevant to the manuscript. In some cases, these papers may be useful, but in a few cases, the papers would be from the reviewer, to increase the citations, and to give hints to the authors who are reviewing the manuscript.
(2) The most like case is that if you pay attention, you would notice that these papers and the references lists are from one specific country, from which I come from too. Here if a paper is an "ESI highly cited paper", the bonus (money from the university) would be given to the authors. So I can briefly tell you what is going on since I have received so many emails regarding how to "operate" an "ESI highly cited" paper. Once I have a paper published, these emails would come to my spam-email box, titling "we can help you to make your paper as highly cited paper"
step 1: you need to find an agent, who has and manages a pool of papers, you should pay the fee and put your papers in the pool.
step 2: in the future when you have a manuscript, you shall tell the agent about the title and the keywords, the agent would then tell you to cite some papers in the pool, and this is what you see here, these papers are not related to the topic but belong to a more broad topic like "materials science" "catalyst" etc, and it makes sense. The agents are not scholars, they are running a business.
step 3: after you have done this, in the future, your own paper would be cited by the other groups of authors in their papers. Since your papers are in the pool, the agent would request other groups in the pool to cite them as an exchange.
step 4: the agents would give you word that how many citations to your paper would be granted in a specific time frame, for example, in the next year 30 citations.
so it is like rolling a snowball, the references list became longer and longer, and more and more "ESI highly cited papers" are produced, in the meantime, the authors' own citation increases, along with awarded money, funding, and fame. Further investigation on this matter is difficult since it is a big web. If you want to look deeper, you should look at the references you listed here. 10 papers in total and at least 7 of them are "ESI highly cited papers" already. Please note that only the top 1% of papers is defined as "ESI highly cited papers", and the ratio is at least 70% here. The same thing in your quote https://pubpeer.com/publications/1503209548E954A01B99FC8FC51400. 5 of the 9 papers you listed are highly cited. So do you think it is a coincidence? Not only the authors of this paper but also the authors of the reference papers are in a big and complex network. They do not need to know each other, but they can work together to generate a pile of "precious" "ESI highly cited papers", guided and managed by the agent.
Dear Hoya camphorifolia, you would be further convinced by me by the following 3 facts:
these questionable reference lists are mostly published in the recent 1 or 2 years, or in the same year, you never find a classic or older paper in the lists. This is because of the way to define an “ESI highly cited paper”. It is much easier to trigger the threshold for a fresh paper. If you get 30 citations in the year your paper is published, no doubt it would be a hot paper.
the citations of these questionable references are for no reason and random, they can appear in the introduction part, or in the conclusion part, with a bundle, because few readers would look at them, and the authors just want to finish the request of the agents by doing such.
the authors of the paper and the authors of the questionable reference papers are not from the same institution or region of the country. So apparently there are no obvious common interests, the editor would not blame the authors for the heavy "self-citation" issue, and you are also confused why they are doing this.
Finally, you will see that this is a carefully designed, un-trackable network. The agent gets the entrance fee to the paper pool from the scholars, the scholars get the reward of citations and the bonus, the research community and the institution get high due to the more highly cited papers, and the journals can also be benefited from the higher impact factor.
As a scholar with conscientiousness, I have never done this, but once I did spend some time talking with an agent and know the way they bubble the citations. Although I have several highly cited papers I never consider this way, I hope that my explanation here can help you to understand this issue.
#2 Many thanks for your explanation!
The two versions of "Assembly of Two New Coordination Polymers: Luminescent Properties and Anti-inflammatory Activity on Postoperative Infectious Endophthalmitis" (Bian, Zhang & Qu, 2021) may be relevant here - the published version and the preprint. A block of perfectly reasonable citations in the pre-print was replaced for publication by a block of irrelevant but heavily-promoted nonsense.
In "Study on the effect of oxidation-ultrasound treatment on the electrochemical properties of activated carbon materials" (Fu et al 2020), the payload of meaningless references - overlapping with the payload for this paper - was added at the final stage of proofreading and correction, and not present in the version that the peer-reviewers approved.
I can briefly give some website to help you understand how popular "operating an ESI highly cited paper" is
her you input your information and you will sooner get contacted to the "agent" who can manipulate the citations
Quote on today
Ref8: Effects of A/B-Site Co-Doping on Microstructure and Dielectric Thermal Stability of AgNbO3 Ceramics
Published: 2021
Citation on WOS: 29
Journal Impact: 1.474
Ref9: Synthesis and Catalytic Performance of a New V-doped CeO2-supported Alkali-activated-steel-slag-based Photocatalyst
Published: 2021
Citation on WOS: 18
Journal Impact: 0.957
Ref10: Mechanisms of emerging pollutant Dechlorane Plus on the production of short-chain fatty acids from sludge anaerobic fermentation
Published: 2021
Citation on WOS: 18
Journal Impact: 4.223
Ref11 Constructing Straight Pores and Improving Mechanical Properties of Gangue-Based Porous Ceramics Published: 2021
Citation on WOS: 32 ESI highly cited
Journal Impact: 1.670
The added references outperform the journals
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