Why is the citation rate of academic papers low?

On the whole, the total number of papers in China is growing, and the citation rate is also improving. However, while people are rejoicing, they will also find that: the citation rate of domestic papers is still insufficient, which is very disproportionate to our status as a big country, and is not commensurate with the investment in science and technology; the change in the input is very huge, and the change in the citation is very slow. What are the problems with the quality of academic papers? I think there are six problems with our academic papers: The first problem is that the introduction is too general and does not serve the purpose of an introduction. There is no substantive description of the background of the study, its content, or the significance of the work. The second problem is that the whole academic paper has no introduction to the work of our peers, and once our academic paper is put into an international context, it looks a bit like an elementary school student's paper. The third problem is that the authors do not have weighty literature on hand, and the amount of references is too small, some of them are only two or three, and some of them have no references at all. The fourth problem is the lack of complete information about the important aspects of the research process in terms of writing, most people do not incorporate discussions to explain the results he got. An important part of papers in science and technology, science, technology, agriculture and medicine is to parse the results of the experiments, and some of our papers tend to replace the discussion with a conclusion, without which one does not know what is so important and innovative about it. The fifth problem is that original papers do not have first-hand research results, and they study and analyze a bunch of their own research and come up with someone else's results. The sixth problem is that it is against scientific ethics not to introduce the existing results of similar work, not to mention the extent of other people's research, but only to say that they are the world's advanced level. To solve these problems, we have to start from many aspects. I think if we can advocate citing other people's papers in a positive way, we can solve several of our six problems. If he can cite papers carefully, the first three problems are solved, and the fourth can be partially solved, because the author will then understand what it means to discuss, what it means to have results, and what it means to draw conclusions. Without a good paper in the author's hands, a situation develops where a low level paper guides a low level paper. Since there has been modern science and technology, there have been very few laws, methods, and results named after the Chinese. For example, we have Einstein's equations, but seldom hear of Zhang San's equations or Li Si's equations. We feel sorry for this, and we ourselves are responsible for it, with both subjective and objective factors. In any case, not citing the work we have already done makes us lose a lot of discourse. Why is the citation rate of Chinese people's own papers low? Our low citation rate of academic papers is like grain rotting in a warehouse without anyone noticing it. Improving the quality of academic papers starts from improving the citation rate. We hope that the citation rate will keep increasing, not only citing foreign papers, but also citing Chinese papers, not only citing our own papers, but also citing the papers of our peers, citing papers with weight, and citing papers that are recognized. In my opinion, there are four reasons for the low citation rate of academic papers: The first is the impetuous wind. Some people write papers only for the purpose of evaluation of titles, evaluation of professors, doctoral students, in order to get a diploma, get a degree certificate, as long as there is a paper on the line, published is the purpose of citation, citation does not matter, regardless of the world and who is doing the same work with him. There are also people who think that citing other people's ideas does not make them less innovative, right? In order to wear the hat of innovation, they would rather cover their ears. Indeed there is such a thing, I do not quote, I do not make a mistake, but I quote I will not be able to assess the first prize, why? It's not originality anymore! This is a one-sided understanding of originality. With the Tibetan Plateau, there are the Himalayas, there is Mount Everest. Without these three levels, there is no Mount Everest. However, many of our papers give people the feeling that we can not see his basic work, the work of his peers, do not know where his "Tibetan Plateau", "Himalayas", but you already know that he is the "Everest". Everest", is the world leader, this is the impetuous wind. The second reason is the influence of traditional culture, self-humility, and at the same time, the literati. Modesty makes their original work well done not quote. A scientist engaged in the work of more than ten years, he published at least twenty or thirty papers, he wrote his own articles never cited his previous articles, he thought that it was a disgrace, to be said to be self-referential, I do not know when people think that self-referential bad. The continuity and development of science and technology require that no matter who it is, it can be quoted if it is right. Literary contempt makes it unappealing to cite someone else's paper. The third reason is that the history of science has caused us to cite less. What is meant by scientific history? Because modern science and technology is a foreign culture to the Chinese people, are imported, so there is nothing to quote their own things. There is no need for citation, no tradition has been formed. In the developed countries in the West, citation is a tradition, is the morality of science and technology, the first morality is to be cited, openly say that Zhang San do is better than me, this is the Western tradition. The fourth reason is also attributable to our immaturity in science and technology. We have been developing science and technology steadily for only 30 years, and these 30 years are very valuable to us. However, we have to be realistic and say that others have been developing for 200 or 300 years. The immaturity in science and technology has led to our lack of citations, but we can't wait until we are mature, we have to leapfrog. Therefore, I advocate to improve the citation rate of academic papers, one is that the experts who write papers should cite more papers, including other people's papers and their own papers; the second is that the experts engaged in the management of science and technology should be encouraged to take measures to improve the citation rate in all aspects, and if we do a good job in these two things, I believe that the quality of China's academic papers will gradually improve. (The author is the Secretary of the Secretariat of the Chinese Association for Science and Technology)