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Post retraction citations in context: a case study

Author

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  • Judit Bar-Ilan

    (Bar-Ilan University)

  • Gali Halevi

    (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai)

Abstract

This study examines the nature of citations to articles that were retracted in 2014. Out of 987 retracted articles found in ScienceDirect, an Elsevier full text database, we selected all articles that received more than 10 citations between January 2015 and March 2016. Since the retraction year was known for only about 83% of the retracted articles, we chose to concentrate on recent citations, that for certain appeared after the cited paper was retracted. Overall, we analyzed 238 citing documents and identified the context of each citation as positive, negative or neutral. Our results show that the vast majority of citations to retracted articles are positive despite of the clear retraction notice on the publisher’s platform and regardless of the reason for retraction. Positive citations can be also seen to articles that were retracted due to ethical misconduct, data fabrication and false reports. In light of these results, we listed some recommendations for publishers that could potentially minimize the referral to retracted studies as valid.

Suggested Citation

  • Judit Bar-Ilan & Gali Halevi, 2017. "Post retraction citations in context: a case study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(1), pages 547-565, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:113:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-017-2242-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-017-2242-0
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    1. R Grant Steen & Arturo Casadevall & Ferric C Fang, 2013. "Why Has the Number of Scientific Retractions Increased?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(7), pages 1-9, July.
    2. Furman, Jeffrey L. & Jensen, Kyle & Murray, Fiona, 2012. "Governing knowledge in the scientific community: Exploring the role of retractions in biomedicine," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 276-290.
    3. Carol Ann Kochan & John M. Budd, 1992. "The persistence of fraud in the literature: The Darsee case," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 43(7), pages 488-493, August.
    4. Juan Miguel Campanario, 2000. "Fraud: retracted articles are still being cited," Nature, Nature, vol. 408(6810), pages 288-288, November.
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