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Retracted Covid-19 articles: significantly more cited than other articles within their journal of origin
Abstract
With the expansion of research volume, coinciding with the age of the internet, the retraction of published papers from scientific journals has become crucial to preserving scientific integrity. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, both public and professional interest in scientific literature has grown as people attempt to educate themselves on the virus. The Retraction Watch Database COVID-19 blog was accessed in June and November of 2022 and analyzed to ensure articles met inclusion criteria. Articles were then accessed on Google Scholar and the Scopus database to find number of citations and SJR/CiteScore. The average SJR and CiteScore for a journal that published one of the articles was 1.531 and 7.3 respectively. The retracted articles were cited an average of 44.8 times, which was significantly higher than the average CiteScore (p = 0.01). Between June and November, retracted COVID-19 articles gained a total of 728 new citations, presence of "withdrawn" or "retracted" before article title did not affect citation rates. COPE guidelines for retraction statements were not met for 32% of articles. We believe retracted COVID-19 publications may have been more likely to include bold claims that garnered a disproportionately high amount of attention within the scientific community. Additionally, we found many journals were not forthright with explanations for why articles had been retracted. Retractions could be a tool used to add to the scientific discourse, but currently we are only getting half the data, the what and not the why.Source
Taros T, Zoppo C, Yee N, Hanna J, MacGinnis C. Retracted Covid-19 articles: significantly more cited than other articles within their journal of origin. Scientometrics. 2023;128(5):2935-2943. doi: 10.1007/s11192-023-04707-4. Epub 2023 Apr 12. PMID: 37101974; PMCID: PMC10089824.DOI
10.1007/s11192-023-04707-4Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/52008PubMed ID
37101974Rights
© Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary 2023, Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1007/s11192-023-04707-4