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[petedondriac]

I am sure this will be shut down by a senior member explaining that the issue has been covered, but here it goes any way. In any other field, this type of behaviour would be asking for a bribe, or worse, extortion. Why is it acceptable in academia?

[totoro]

If it's relevant it should be cited.

[busyslinky]

Hopefully instead of just 'citing' the work,  you will actually read it.  Maybe, just maybe, it is a work that you can learn something from.

[southerntransplant]

It's too easy to think of a review as a basis for a negotiation, rather than an exchange of ideas. Read the paper. If it's relevant, cite it. If it isn't, don't and say why. I've done both.

[magnusbmuluca]

In some cases it is not a suggestion, but rather a blunt, rude order, and it is not one paper, but rather the last 5 papers by one author or group.

[polly_mer]

In some cases it is not a suggestion, but rather a blunt, rude order, and it is not one paper, but rather the last 5 papers by one author or group.

Well, did you read that series of papers?  Are they relevant?  If you aren't citing something that substantially advanced the sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub field, then your literature review isn't complete and people are right to point out that omission.

[magnusbmuluca]

yes, of course, an no, and it is unlikely that the coverage of the literature is complete, except for failitng to mention 5 recent papers from the same author. But it does not matter, the question is meant to be general. If we accpet that academicians get "paid" by citations, in any other profession, it would be inapproprate. Yes, politicians do it, but is that the standard.

[george_a_lozano]

This happened to me. I called them on it in the reply.

[quasihumanist]

This is, at least in theory, why we have editors.

[ucprof]

When I write reports requesting the author cite some literature the majority of the time the papers are not my own but rather others in the literature that should have been cited by are not - perhaps because the author does not have full knowledge the literature. 

I am about to return corrections on one of my own papers in which the reviewer asked us to cite a specific paper where we introduce some notation.  We are going to tell the editor/reviewer that we are going to cite a different specific paper because it is more general as a review paper and includes all the notation discussed rather than just part of the notation - it seems more appropriate to us to cite that paper.  I will be curious to see if the referee/editor is unhappy with this.

These are just two datapoints but they reflect examples of other possible ways to deal with citation requests and other reasons for making the requests other than drumming up citations of your own work.

As an editor I sometimes make executive decisions about referees requests for citations of their own work.  I would override such requests if I felt there were more appropriate references to cite other than the requested papers of the referee.

[busyslinky]

As an editor, I search out researchers who are real peers, who have recently published on a very similar topic.

Many times, these reviewers, which I have selected specifically for publishing in this area, are not referenced.  If an author of a paper cannot reference very related work (and show how the authors work differs/builds on this work), I wish to know this, many times I already know this.  I would be surprised if a reviewer did not mention related works when there is a clear gap in the review of work and identifying gaps in the research.

Again, read the works, if they add support to your argument, that you did not originally do or help make your argument better, then use them.  Otherwise explain why these other references are inappropriate or whether better references exist.

[polly_mer]

Otherwise explain why these other references are inappropriate or whether better references exist.

This.  If you can't at least explain why the suggested references are inappropriate after having them pointed out, then I do wonder what else you've missed.

[oldfullprof]

Well one writer or his best friend as reviewer suggested a paper that had nothing whatever to do with my paper.  I decamped for another journal then.

It happened again when one reviewer suggested I look at patients discharged from state hospitals when my paper had to do with looting of private insurance policies.  State hospital patients are usually without these resources.  I decamped and published elsewhere.  Itr had been a reject.

[totoro]

Well one writer or his best friend as reviewer suggested a paper that had nothing whatever to do with my paper.  I decamped for another journal then.

You just need to explain in your letter accompanying the revision why that suggestion was inappropriate.

[oldfullprof]

D'oh.  No feces.