9.2.2 How to identify self-citations in Google Scholar?

If you still want to check the number of self-citations in Google Scholar, you can easily do so by double-clicking on the citations in question. I have provided an example below for a colleague, who understandably given her very recent publication history had a relatively modest number of citations (see screenshot).

We can systematically check her self-citations by double-clicking on each publication. This takes us to Google Scholar and displays all citing articles. From here we can easily identify self-citations, such as the one below. Using your browser search functions ensures you do not miss any self-citations.

Doing so for all cited publications above, I was able to find out in less than two minutes that 11 of her 51 citations were self-citations, 6 of which to one 2006 paper (the one highlighted in the screenshot above). Since the other 2 citations for this 2006 paper were by one of Paladino's co-authors, the panel would be justified to assume that the wider impact of this particular paper to the academic community was limited.

However, out of the remaining 43 citations, only 5 were self-citations. Whilst at 11% this is higher than for most highly-cited academics, it would normally not be sufficient reason to change ones assessment of the candidates research impact. Although specific benchmarks are difficult to give, I would normally not be too concerned with anything less than 30% self-citations for junior candidates. Obviously, for candidates with a larger number of citations, one would expect a lower proportion of self-citations.