Self-correction of science: a comparative study of negative citations and post-publication peer review

Bordignon, Frédérique

doi:10.1007/s11192-020-03536-z

Cited by 37 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…A number of researchers have already made use of scite for quantitative assessments of the literature. For example, Bordignon ( 45 ) examined self-correction in the scientific record and operationalized “negative” citations as those which scite classified as disputing. They found that negative citations are rare, even among works that have been retracted.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

scite: a smart citation index that displays the context of citations and classifies their intent using deep learning

Nicholson¹,

Mordaunt²,

Lopez³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Citation indices are tools used by the academic community for research and research evaluation which aggregate scientific literature output and measure scientific impact by collating citation counts. Citation indices help measure the interconnections between scientific papers but fall short because they only display paper titles, authors, and the date of publications, and fail to communicate contextual information about why a citation was made. The usage of citations in research evaluation without due consideration to context can be problematic, if only because a citation that disputes a paper is treated the same as a citation that supports it. To solve this problem, we have used machine learning and other techniques to develop a "smart citation index" called scite, which categorizes citations based on context. Scite shows how a citation was used by displaying the surrounding textual context from the citing paper, and a classification from our deep learning model that indicates whether the statement provides supporting or disputing evidence for a referenced work, or simply mentions it. Scite has been developed by analyzing over 23 million full-text scientific articles and currently has a database of more than 800 million classified citation statements. Here we describe how scite works and how it can be used to further research and research evaluation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

scite: a smart citation index that displays the context of citations and classifies their intent using deep learning

Nicholson¹,

Mordaunt²,

Lopez³

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Either way, researchers' citing practices play a prominent role in several of these phenomena. However, citation practices have only rarely been the focus of studies relating to the integrity or validity of science (with some exceptions, including (Bordignon, 2020;Greenberg, 2009b;G. Leng & Leng, 2020b;Martin, 2013)).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meta-Research: How problematic citing practices distort science

Horbach¹,

Aagaard²,

Schneider³

2021

Preprint

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Citing practices constitute a core element in scientific research and communication in which they serve several important functions. They both comprise the principal unit of science’s social reward system and they establish epistemic genealogy, showing the foundations on which claims are built. Distorted or problematic citing behaviour can hence have major harmful consequences for the well-functioning of the scientific enterprise. In this article we employ a case study approach to show how, even in the field of research integrity, or more broadly, meta-research, researchers commonly adhere to suboptimal citing practices. Our findings highlight, among other shortcomings, an apparent lack of critical engagement with the cited literature, leading to incorrect reproductions of claims and overgeneralisation of supposed research findings. We link such problematic citing practices to the state of crisis that science is currently claimed to face, discussing how these practices might be both a symptom and a cause of these crises.

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“…So, even though correction notices are recognized as a form of scientific self-correction [ 1 , 8 , 9 ], one might wonder how much they truly impact the underlying knowledge base. Do they also yield new insights, and revise theories like other forms of scientific self-correction, or do they mostly involve superficial aspects of the scientific record?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Correction notices in psychology: impactful or inconsequential?

Heyman

Maerten

2020

R. Soc. open sci.

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Science is self-correcting, or so the adage goes, but to what extent is that indeed the case? Answering this question requires careful consideration of the various approaches to achieve the collective goal of self-correction. One of the most straightforward mechanisms is individual self-correction: researchers rectifying their own mistakes by publishing a correction notice. Although it offers an efficient route to correcting the scientific record, it has received little to no attention from a metascientific point of view. We aim to fill this void by analysing the content of correction notices published from 2010 until 2018 in the three psychology journals featuring the highest number of corrections over that timespan based on the Scopus database (i.e. Psychological Science with N = 58, Frontiers in Psychology with N = 99 and Journal of Affective Disorders with N = 57). More concretely, we examined which aspects of the original papers were affected (e.g. hypotheses, data-analyses, metadata such as author order, affiliations, funding information etc.) as well as the perceived implications for the papers’ main findings. Our exploratory analyses showed that many corrections involved inconsequential errors. Furthermore, authors rarely revised their conclusions, even though several corrections concerned changes to the results. We conclude with a discussion of current policies, and suggest ways to improve upon the present situation by (i) preventing mistakes, and (ii) transparently rectifying those mistakes that do find their way into the literature.

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Self-correction of science: a comparative study of negative citations and post-publication peer review

Cited by 37 publications

References 49 publications

scite: a smart citation index that displays the context of citations and classifies their intent using deep learning

scite: a smart citation index that displays the context of citations and classifies their intent using deep learning

Meta-Research: How problematic citing practices distort science

Correction notices in psychology: impactful or inconsequential?

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