The ethics of peer and editorial requests for self-citation of their work and journal.

Peer reviewers are expected to be experts in a field of study and should be versed with the pertinent literature related with the manuscript they are reviewing. Editors might not necessarily be experts in a particular field, but they have the responsibility of overseeing the requests made by peers, and assessing whether these are ethically appropriate, or not. Thus, requests by peers to cite unrelated literature, which may or may not be their own literature, could be unethical, especially if the objective is to improve their own citations or to boost the citations of the journal for which they are reviewing. In contrast, requests to cite pertinent work that is in fact missing from the paper's literature, even if it may be the reviewer or editor's work, or from the same journal, is acceptable. Editors ultimately approve the requests and suggestions made by reviewers, so inappropriate suggestions made by peer reviewers are the responsibility of the editor and journal. There needs to be a bias-free mechanism in place that offers protection to authors who wish to complain, and consequences for editors who do not conduct an impartial decision. Authors have the right to challenge such suggestions, but may face unfair retaliation in the form of a rejection if they resist making changes that they perceive as being inappropriate.