Self-citation corrections for the Hirsch index

I propose to sharpen the index h, suggested by Hirsch as a useful index to characterize the scientific output of a researcher, by excluding the self-citations. Performing a self-experiment and also discussing in detail two anonymous data sets, it is shown that self-citations can significantly reduce the h index in contrast to Hirsch's expectations. This result is confirmed by an analysis of 13 further data sets. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2007.