Retraction notice: Who sees what, why and how? Rethinking transparency and opacity in OSCM

A retraction notice (RN), at least according to COPE guidance, is meant to be a document that represents transparency. With transparency comes accountability of the agents that are named in the RN. Despite this, while it is not uncommon to see authors’ names listed in RNs, names of editors who are responsible for the editorial decision of retraction may be absent. Their identification is important because editors supposedly oversee the RN’s wording and explicitly approve the issuance and publication of RNs. To gain an initial measure of the presence or absence of editors’ names in RNs, 18 RNs issued by COPE member journals were identified in PubPeer in July and August 2024. The RNs were obtained from the source (i.e., journals’ websites) and examined, noting whether the names of editors are named in RNs, or not. The agreement or disagreement of authors with the retractions and/or the RNs was also noted. Of the 18 RNs examined, all of those from Wiley journals indicated the editors’ name, whereas most other COPE member journals’ RNs did not. Authors’ agreement or disagreement was not indicated in one third of the RNs. The editor responsible for a RN might be the same or different to that when the paper was originally published, so both (where applicable) should be named in the RN. This article posits that the absence of an editor’s name in the RN is problematic from the stand-point of transparency and accountability. A larger and more systematic analysis of a larger body of RNs is warranted.

“The more important findings are sustained”: A diachronic perspective on the genre of the retraction notice

Academic journal publications may be retracted following institutional investigations that confirm allegations of research misconduct. Retraction notices can provide insight into the role institutional investigations play in the decision to retract a publication. Through a content analysis of 7,318 retraction notices published between 1927 and 2019 and indexed by the Web of Science, we found that most retraction notices (73.7%) provided no information about institutional investigations that may have led to retractions. A minority of the retraction notices (26.3%) mentioned an institutional investigation either by journal authorities (12.1%), research performing organizations (10.3%), joint institutions (1.9%), research integrity and ethics governing bodies (1.0%), third-party institutions (0.5%), unspecified institutions (0.4%), or research funding organizations (0.1%). Comparing retraction notices issued before and after the introduction of retraction guidelines by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in 2009 revealed that those published after the guidelines’ publication were more likely to report investigations by journal authorities. Comparing retraction notices from different disciplines revealed that those from social sciences and the humanities were more likely to disclose investigations by research performing organizations than those from biomedical and natural sciences. Based on these findings, we suggest that the COPE retraction guidelines in the future make it mandatory to disclose in retraction notices institutional investigations leading to retractions.

Why articles continue to be cited after they have been retracted: An audit of retraction notices

Unlike other academic publications whose authorship is eagerly claimed, the provenance of retraction notices (RNs) is often obscured presumably because the retraction of published research is associated with undesirable behavior and consequently carries negative consequences for the individuals involved. The ambiguity of authorship, however, has serious ethical ramifications and creates methodological problems for research on RNs that requires clear authorship attribution. This article reports a study conducted to identify RN textual features that can be used to disambiguate obscured authorship, ascertain the extent of authorship evasion in RNs from two disciplinary clusters, and determine if the disciplines varied in the distributions of different types of RN authorship. Drawing on a corpus of 370 RNs archived in the Web of Science for the hard discipline of Cell Biology and the soft disciplines of Business, Finance, and Management, this study has identified 25 types of textual markers that can be used to disambiguate authorship, and revealed that only 25.68% of the RNs could be unambiguously attributed to authors of the retracted articles alone or jointly and that authorship could not be determined for 28.92% of the RNs. Furthermore, the study has found marked disciplinary differences in the different categories of RN authorship. These results point to the need for more explicit editorial requirements about RN authorship and their strict enforcement.

Agency and responsibility: A linguistic analysis of culpable acts in retraction notices

Assigning responsibility for retraction is a crucial rhetorical strategy for communicating retraction stigma in retraction notices. However, the linguistic realization of this strategy remains largely unexplored. This study addresses the gap by analyzing 3,296 retraction notices for the disclosure of retraction-engendering acts by responsibility-bearing authors and the grammatical constructions used to represent agency and assign responsibility. It is found that retraction-engendering acts were disclosed in 92.1% of the retraction notices. In the retraction notices disclosing these acts, seven distinct grammatical constructions were employed to represent agency linguistically and encode responsibility attributively. Significant variations were identified in both the disclosure of retraction-engendering acts and the grammatical representation of responsibility across four contextual factors: academic disciplines (hard disciplines vs. soft disciplines), retraction periods (1980–2009 vs. 2010–2019), retraction notice authorship (i.e. journal authorities vs. authors of retracted publications), and retraction reasons (i.e. blatant misconduct vs. inappropriate conduct vs. questionable conduct vs. honest error).

To better understand and prevent research errors, we conducted a first-of-its-kind scoping review of clinical and translational research articles that were retracted because of problems in data capture, management, and/or analysis. The scoping review followed a preregistered protocol and used retraction notices from the Retraction Watch Database in relevant subject areas, excluding gross misconduct. Abstracts of original articles published between January 1, 2011 and January 31, 2020 were reviewed to determine if articles were related to clinical and translational research. We reviewed retraction notices and associated full texts to obtain information on who retracted the article, types of errors, authors, data types, study design, software, and data availability. After reviewing 1,266 abstracts, we reviewed 884 associated retraction notices and 786 full-text articles. Authors initiated the retraction over half the time (58%). Nearly half of retraction notices (42%) described problems generating or acquiring data, and 28% described problems with preparing or analyzing data. Among the full texts that we reviewed: 77% were human research; 29% were animal research; and 6% were systematic reviews or meta-analyses. Most articles collected data de novo (77%), but only 5% described the methods used for data capture and management, and only 11% described data availability. Over one-third of articles (38%) did not specify the statistical software used. Authors may improve scientific research by reporting methods for data capture and statistical software. Journals, editors, and reviewers should advocate for this documentation. Journals may help the scientific record self-correct by requiring detailed, transparent retraction notices.

Key points Retraction notices are widely criticized for pervasive opacity and uninformativeness. Retraction notices as a high‐stakes academic genre serve three communicative purposes, namely correcting the literature, deterring potential offence, and repairing the tarnished image. A comprehensive content inventory of retraction notices is developed, drawing on de jure and de facto retraction notice contents. Five criteria for disclosing information in retraction notices are proposed. Retraction notices following the content inventory and the disclosure criteria can maximize their transparency.

ObjectiveTo evaluate the clarity of retraction notices in otolaryngology journals and examine the relationship between retraction notice clarity and improper post‐retraction citations.Study DesignA retrospective analysis of retracted articles in otolaryngology journals from journal inception to August 1, 2024.SettingArticles were selected from leading otolaryngology journals with citation data retrieved from major academic databases.MethodsRetracted articles were identified using the Retraction Watch Database. Citation patterns were analyzed through Google Scholar and Scopus. Retraction notices were evaluated for adherence to Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines. The study included 80 retracted articles, with 1398 citations in Google Scholar and 714 in Scopus. Primary outcomes included the proportion of retraction notices meeting COPE guidelines and the rate of improper post‐retraction citations.ResultsRetraction notices adhered to COPE guidelines in 52.5% of cases (N = 42). Among 80 retracted articles, only 42.5% were labeled as retracted across all platforms. Alarmingly, 98.2% of citations that occurred after articles were retracted did not acknowledge their retracted status. Clearer retraction notices correlated with fewer improper citations. Proper labeling across all platforms led to a 52.89% reduction in citation rates, whereas any missing labels resulted in only a 28.72% reduction.ConclusionClarity in retraction notices significantly impacts improper citation rates. Standardized, prominently displayed retraction notices adhering to ethical guidelines can reduce misinformation. Strengthening retraction practices and improving database integration are recommended to enhance the effectiveness of retractions and maintain scientific integrity.

Background and Aims:Various aspects of retracted articles authored by Yoshitaka Fujii and their retraction notices have been examined. Yuhji Saitoh has coauthored many articles with Yoshitaka Fujii which were subsequently retracted. Japanese Society of Anesthesiology (JSA) recommends retraction of various articles by Yuhji Saitoh, but various attributes of those and their retraction notices have not been examined.Methods:A list of retracted articles was retrieved from PubMed, Retraction Watch Database and relevant journals. Their retraction notices were obtained from the journal's webpage. Predefined characteristics of the retracted articles and their retraction notices were evaluated against those proposed by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).Results:Fifteen such articles were retracted. Two of them were not identified as retracted in the journal webpage. Half of the papers mentioned by JSA are yet to be retracted. Among those retracted, only 13.3% retraction notices were in line with the guidelines published by the COPE. Two retracted articles are yet to be flagged as retracted in PubMed. The median (interquartile range) time required for retraction from the date of declaration of being eligible for retraction is 14 (3) months. Data were analysed with Microsoft Excel™ (2007).Conclusion:Even after more than 1 year of recommendation, many articles containing evidence of scientific misconduct are yet to be retracted. Among those retracted, the relevant authority failed to follow the prevalent and well-regarded standards of ethics in scholarly publication.

The frequency of scientific retractions has grown substantially in recent years. However, thus far there is no standardized retraction notice format to which journals and their publishers adhere voluntarily, let alone compulsorily. We developed a rubric specifying seven criteria in order to judge whether retraction notices are easily and freely accessible, informative, and transparent. We mined the Retraction Watch database and evaluated a total of 768 retraction notices from two publishers (Springer and Wiley) over three years (2010, 2015, and 2020). Per our rubric, both publishers tended to score higher on measures of openness/availability, accessibility, and clarity as to why a paper was retracted than they did in: acknowledging institutional investigations; confirming whether there was consensus among authors; and specifying which parts of any given paper warranted retraction. Springer retraction notices appeared to improve over time with respect to the rubric’s seven criteria. We observed some discrepancies among raters, indicating the difficulty in developing a robust objective rubric for evaluating retraction notices.

The number of citations can be used to show the influence of an article or to measure the validity of a research study. The article by Wakefield et al that fraudulently reported an association between vaccination and autism continues to accumulate citations even after it was retracted. To examine the characteristics of citations from scholarly literature that reference the 1998 article by Wakefield et al and to investigate whether authors are accurately citing retracted references. In this cross-sectional bibliographic analysis of the scholarly publications that cited a 1998 article by Wakefield et al, cited references were collected from a Web of Science Core Collection search performed on March 11, 2019. A total of 1211 articles were identified, with 58 citing works excluded because they were non-English-language publications or the citation to the study by Wakefield et al could not be located by reviewers. Citing works consisted of books, research articles, letters, editorials, news items, and other scholarly literature. Citations to the article by Wakefield et al were identified and analyzed by 2 reviewers in a blinded screening. Reviewers assigned a characteristic to each citation and indicated whether the retraction was documented. The characteristics of citations to the article by Wakefield et al, were categorized as negative, affirmative, or contrastive; if not, persuasive; and if not, assumptive, perfunctory, methodologic, or conceptual. Whether the partial retraction or notice of retraction was included in the citing work was also documented. Among the 1153 citing works included in this analysis, the most common citation characteristics were negative (838 [72.7%]) followed by perfunctory (106 [9.2%]) and affirmative (94 [8.2%]). A total of 123 of 322 citing works (38.2%) published between 2005 and 2010 documented the partial retraction. After the notice of retraction was published in 2010, the percentage of citing works that documented the partial retraction and/or notice of retraction between 2011 and 2018 increased to 360 of 502 (71.7%). Since the article by Wakefield et al was initially published, authors have mostly negated the findings of the study. A significant number of authors did not document retractions of the article by Wakefield et al. The findings suggest that improvements are needed from publishers, bibliographic databases, and citation management software to ensure that retracted articles are accurately documented.

In Brief| September 01 2017 Retractions Pediatr Rev (2017) 38 (9): 445. https://doi.org/10.1542/pir.389445 Connected Content This is a retraction to: Case 1: Rash, Recalcitrant Tachycardia, and Hypertension in a 16-Year-Old Girl This is a retraction to: Visual Diagnosis: 3-Year-Old Boy With Persistent Right Chest Wheezing This is a retraction to: Visual Diagnosis: 7-year-old Girl With Swelling in the Arm Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Retractions. Pediatr Rev September 2017; 38 (9): 445. https://doi.org/10.1542/pir.389445 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All PublicationsAll JournalsPediatrics In ReviewPediatricsHospital PediatricsNeoReviewsAAP Grand RoundsAAP NewsAll AAP Sites Search Advanced Search Subjects: Infectious Diseases Topics: arm, chest, edema, exanthema, hypertension, persistence, tachycardia, wheezing 1. NOTICE OF RETRACTION: Visual Diagnosis: 7-year-old Girl With Swelling in the Arm. Shahnawaz M. Amdani, Magda Mendez. Pediatrics in Review. May 2015; 36(5): e14-e17, DOI: 10.1542/pir.36-5-e14. The American Academy of Pediatrics has removed this article from circulation because it contained citation and attribution errors. We apologize to our readers. 2. NOTICE OF RETRACTION: Visual Diagnosis: 3-Year-Old Boy With Persistent Right Chest Wheezing. Shahnawaz M. Amdani, Naresh Reddivalla, Magda Mendez, Orlando Perales. Pediatrics in Review. Dec. 2014; 35(12): e61-e63, DOI: 10.1542/pir.35-12-e61. The American Academy of Pediatrics has removed this article from circulation because it contained citation and attribution errors. We apologize to our readers. 3. NOTICE OF RETRACTION: Index of Suspicion: Rash, Recalcitrant Tachycardia, and Hypertension in a 16-Year-Old Girl. Seshashree Seshadri, Samhar Al-Akash, Salam Gharaybeh. Pediatrics in Review. Jan. 2015; 36(1): 31-32, DOI: 10.1542/pir.36-1-31. The American Academy of Pediatrics has removed this article... You do not currently have access to this content.

Retraction notices are expected to be transparent about entities accountable for retractions and their reasons for retraction. No previous research on retraction notices has investigated accountable entities other than authors of retracted publications and their reasons for retraction from a cross‐disciplinary and a diachronic perspective. Drawing on a dataset of 7650 unique retraction notices published before 2020 and indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection, this study identified 457 retraction notices that held four types of non‐author entities accountable. Journal authorities (i.e., editors and publishers) were found responsible for retractions in 62.14% of the retraction notices, followed by unidentifiable entities (26.91%), third parties (6.13%), and dual entities (i.e., both authors and journal authorities, 4.81%). The three most frequent reasons for retraction were republication of valid publications (36.76%), unspecified reasons (26.91%), and publication of unpublishable work (17.07%). Accountable non‐author entities were more identifiable in the retraction notices published between 2010 and 2019 than in those published before 2010. Retraction notices in soft disciplines were more likely than those in hard disciplines to identify journal authorities as accountable entities. These findings offer implications for handling retractions more effectively and efficiently.