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ChatGPT and the potential growing of ghost bibliographic references

Author

Listed:
  • Enrique Orduña-Malea

    (Universitat Politècnica de València)

  • Álvaro Cabezas-Clavijo

    (Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR))

Abstract

This letter warns about the identification of research publications available online that contain references to non-existent papers (ghost bibliographic references). This is likely to happen due to the use of ChatGPT, a LLM-based (Large-Language Models) chatbot which generates plausible but fake bibliographic references. Although the magnitude of the problem is still unknown (it could affect only preprint platforms, predatory journals, or poor-quality publication venues) and it is expected that ChatGPT would provide true references in a short period of time, both journals and publishers must be vigilant to prevent fake references from flooding their pages.

Suggested Citation

  • Enrique Orduña-Malea & Álvaro Cabezas-Clavijo, 2023. "ChatGPT and the potential growing of ghost bibliographic references," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(9), pages 5351-5355, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:128:y:2023:i:9:d:10.1007_s11192-023-04804-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-023-04804-4
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Emilio Delgado López-Cózar & Nicolás Robinson-García & Daniel Torres-Salinas, 2014. "The Google scholar experiment: How to index false papers and manipulate bibliometric indicators," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 65(3), pages 446-454, March.
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