Why do some retracted papers continue to be cited?

Silva, Jaime A. Teixeira da; Bornemann‐Cimenti, Helmar

doi:10.1007/s11192-016-2178-9

Cited by 71 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…If this fails, then journals can retract articles, thus removing them from the formal scientific record. Retraction is not, however, ideal because retracted articles, as was the case with both Surgisphere papers, often have considerable impacts prior to retraction and never fully “disappear” (Teixeira Da Silva and Bornemann-Cimenti 2017 ). Prepublication review, therefore, plays a crucial role in scientific quality control.…”

Section: Failure Of Journal Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Science at Warp Speed: Medical Research, Publication, and Translation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Lipworth

Gentgall²,

Kerridge

et al. 2020

Bioethical Inquiry

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In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a rapid growth in research focused on developing vaccines and therapies. In this context, the need for speed is taken for granted, and the scientific process has adapted to accommodate this. On the surface, attempts to speed up the research enterprise appear to be a good thing. It is, however, important to consider what, if anything, might be lost when biomedical innovation is sped up. In this article we use the case of a study recently retracted from the Lancet to illustrate the potential risks and harms associated with speeding up science. We then argue that, with appropriate governance mechanisms in place (and adequately resourced), it should be quite possible to both speed up science and remain attentive to scientific quality and integrity. Keywords COVID-19. Pandemic. Research quality. Research governance. Research integrity. Biomedical publication The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world in profound ways and led to significant shifts in our social, political, economic, and scientific priorities. Among these has been a major shift in both public and private research funding towards COVID-19-related projects, with the aim of mapping the pandemic and its effects and developing vaccines and therapies (London and Kimmelman 2020). In this context, the need for speed is taken for granted, and the scientific process has adapted to accommodate this. Rather than going through the usual research-dissemination-translation pathway, existing drugs are being "repurposed," usual preclinical testing regimes are being bypassed or shortened, study sizes are being reduced, and timeconsuming randomized controlled trials are being replaced or supplemented with observational studies. The results of research are already being reported mere months after the epidemic's onset-often prior to formal peer review or after so-called "rapid" review. And regulators are "fast tracking" their review of potentially promising drugs and vaccines (

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Section: Failure Of Journal Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Science at Warp Speed: Medical Research, Publication, and Translation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Lipworth

Gentgall²,

Kerridge

et al. 2020

Bioethical Inquiry

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show abstract

“…However, one need not even look at how the IF is derived and published to come to the conclusion that there is little in the metric itself that bears any relation to any notion of whatever one may define as “quality.” Nominally, the IF is based on citations, but do citations even reflect a notion of quality? At first glance, one may be tempted to argue that only “good” work gets cited; but when even retracted, mostly fraudulent publications continue to get cited [27–29], this argument breaks down. Moreover, the number of citations is correlated with the size of the field as more authors write more papers that can cite any given paper [30,31].…”

Section: Establishing Journal Rankmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reliable novelty: New should not trump true

Brembs

2019

PLoS Biol

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Although a case can be made for rewarding scientists for risky, novel science rather than for incremental, reliable science, novelty without reliability ceases to be science. The currently available evidence suggests that the most prestigious journals are no better at detecting unreliable science than other journals. In fact, some of the most convincing studies show a negative correlation, with the most prestigious journals publishing the least reliable science. With the credibility of science increasingly under siege, how much longer can we afford to reward novelty at the expense of reliability? Here, I argue for replacing the legacy journals with a modern information infrastructure that is governed by scholars. This infrastructure would allow renewed focus on scientific reliability, with improved sort, filter, and discovery functionalities, at massive cost savings. If these savings were invested in additional infrastructure for research data and scientific code and/or software, scientific reliability would receive additional support, and funding woes—for, e.g., biological databases—would be a concern of the past.

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“…Some academics may believe that authors whose retracted papers have been cited have been cited unfairly, especially if they were offered financial rewards prior to the retraction of that paper, or if they continue to receive "rewards" after the paper's retraction in the form of citations (i.e., unfair recognition), and this argument would be strengthened for papers retracted for fraud or misconduct (Teixeira da Silva & Bornemann-Cimenti, 2017). ABMs rely heavily on citations, and similarly the most frequently used JBM, the Clarivate Analytics journal impact factor (JIF), which many academics use for official purposes to show their productivity, or "value" (Teixeira da Silva & Bernès, 2018).…”

Section: Should Citations and Academic Metrics Be Corrected?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recognition that some parts of retracted papers, such as methodology, might still be valid is one reason why retracted papers continue to be cited (Halevi & Bar-Ilan, 2016). The citation of a retracted paper can be deliberate or unintentional, and there are multiple reasons why retracted papers are cited, some quite extensively (Teixeira da Silva & Bornemann-Cimenti, 2017;Teixeira da Silva & Dobránszki, 2017b). These include the use of print or outdated copies of papers; the use of outdated or antiquated reference managers; the failure to check databases for updates; the use of pirate websites such as Sci-Hub that might archive papers in their unretracted state; self-citation in the belief that the findings are still valid, or where not all authors of the retracted paper have agreed with the retraction; and the posting of PDFs of papers still in their unretracted state to author-based social media sites such as ResearchGate or Academia.edu.…”

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confidence: 99%

Citing Retracted Papers Affects Education and Librarianship, so Distorted Academic Metrics Need a Correction

Silva¹,

Dobránszki

2018

Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication

Self Cite

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A recent paper published in JLSC (Bakker & Riegelman, 2018) noted that in mental health scholarship, the retracted status of 40% of 812 records for 144 retracted papers-including as much as 26.3% of published PDFs-was not clearly indicated as such. Even with a visual indication of the retracted status of a paper, which limits the necessary information available to the public and readership indicating that such literature should no longer be used or cited, retracted literature continues to be cited. In this commentary, we reflect on additional reasons for the continued citation of retracted papers and explain how they might affect bibliometrics and scientometrics, and thus librarianship and education. Moreover, we propose actions to help scholars avoid citing retracted papers and to efficiently correct records where retracted papers have been cited. We introduce a prototype concept, the corrected journal impact factor (cJIF), to improve the accuracy of the most widespread journal-based metric, the Clarivate Analytics journal impact factor (JIF), which may have become distorted by the citation of retracted papers. WHY ARE RETRACTED PAPERS STILL CITED? Multiple reasons exist for retracting a scientific paper, including violation of codes of ethics or established submission codes, research misconduct, questionable data, copyright in

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Why do some retracted papers continue to be cited?

Cited by 71 publications

References 15 publications

Science at Warp Speed: Medical Research, Publication, and Translation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Science at Warp Speed: Medical Research, Publication, and Translation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Reliable novelty: New should not trump true

Citing Retracted Papers Affects Education and Librarianship, so Distorted Academic Metrics Need a Correction

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