<p>There is considerable discussion of self-citations and the h-index in academia, yet there are few tools that facilitate the analysis of self-citations and their impact on the h-index. This letter presents a method for visualizing snapshots of self-citations at the publication level. The visualizations, coined pivotal self-citation plots, extend sorted citation bar graphs where each bar is divided into self-citations and foreign citations. Moreover, the pivotal citations to h-core papers—critical to an author’s h-index—are highlighted. The plots make it easier to spot self-citations possibly added to boost the h-index. A simple interactive web-based tool is provided for exploring such self-citation visualizations. Plots should be interpreted with caution, as pivotal self-citations may not necessarily be manipulative.</p>