An investigation of retracted articles in the biomedical literature
Open accessAbstract
A major challenge to formal scientific communication is the retraction of published works. This study includes a detailed analysis of retracted articles in biomedical literature, including categorization of the reasons for retraction. The examination covers the years 2010 through 2014. Analysis also includes citations to articles retracted between 2001 and 2005. The totality of the investigation is couched within the context of communication in the biomedical sciences and, to a lesser extent, of the formulation of theories of citation.
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Studies of citation counts and citation networks have been limited to showing the existence and quantity of postretraction citations; how retracted papers were cited in full-text articles was underexplored.
“Studies of citation counts and citation networks have been limited to showing the existence and quantity of postretraction citations: How retracted papers were cited in the full-text articles was underexplored.”
From Continued use of retracted papers: Temporal trends in citations and (lack of) awareness of retractions shown in citation contexts in biomedicine (2021) · cites this paper as Budd, Coble, & Abritis, 2016
In SOME PREVIOUS WORK (page unavailable), the paper says earlier studies examined not just citation numbers but also kinds of citations, including whether citing articles acknowledged retractions or treated the papers as valid. Its CITATIONS section also describes the present study as a detailed examination of how retracted articles were cited. That contradicts the claim that such studies were limited to establishing the existence and quantity of citations. (LLM, conf=0.86)
Checked by a reasoning model — may be wrong.
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredBudd et al. (2016) is the only study covering citation contexts of retracted papers at scale, but they only examined the acknowledgment of retraction shown in citations to 265 papers in MEDLINE retracted between 2001 and 2005.
“Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, Budd et al. (2016) is the only study covering citation contexts of retracted papers at scale, but they only examined the acknowledgment of retraction shown in citations to 265 papers in MEDLINE retracted between 2001 and 2005.”
From Continued use of retracted papers: Temporal trends in citations and (lack of) awareness of retractions shown in citation contexts in biomedicine (2021) · cites this paper as Budd et al. (2016)
The CITATIONS section reports analysis of citations to 265 MEDLINE-identified articles retracted between 2001 and 2005. But it classified citations as tacit, substantive, or noting the retraction—not only whether they acknowledged retraction. The SOME PREVIOUS WORK section also describes earlier studies of citation patterns, so this paper does not establish that it was the only study of citation contexts at scale; page numbers are unavailable in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn prior work, only 4.15% (204 out of 4,917) of citations to 265 retracted papers indexed in MEDLINE (2001-2005) acknowledged the retraction.
“Budd et al. (2016) examined citations to 265 retracted papers index in MEDLINE using a time window between 2001 and 2005. Only 4.15% (204 out of 4,917 citations) acknowledged the retraction (Budd et al., 2016).”
From Continued use of retracted papers: Temporal trends in citations and (lack of) awareness of retractions shown in citation contexts in biomedicine (2021) · cites this paper as Budd et al., 2016
Five out of nine previous studies published in the last 5 years (2016-2021) reported fewer than 7% of citations acknowledging retractions.
“Five out of nine previous studies published in the last 5 years (2016–2021) reported fewer than 7% of citations acknowledging retractions (Bolboacă et al., 2019; Budd et al., 2016; Hamilton, 2019; Schneider et al., 2020; van der Vet & Nijveen, 2016).”
From Continued use of retracted papers: Temporal trends in citations and (lack of) awareness of retractions shown in citation contexts in biomedicine (2021) · cites this paper as Budd et al., 2016
A similar proportion (4.15%) was reported in Budd et al.'s (2016) study covering citations to papers retracted between 2001-2005.
“A similar proportion (4.15%) was reported in Budd et al.’s (2016) study covering citations to papers retracted between 2001–2005.”
From Continued use of retracted papers: Temporal trends in citations and (lack of) awareness of retractions shown in citation contexts in biomedicine (2021) · cites this paper as Budd et al.’s (2016)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Budd et al.'s (2016) study covering 4,917 postretraction citations to 265 papers retracted from 2001-2005 was the most recent study on acknowledgement of retraction at scale in the biomedical field.
“To the best of our knowledge, Budd et al.’s (2016) study covering 4,917 postretraction citations to 265 papers retracted from 2001–2005 was the most recent study on acknowledgement of retraction at scale in the biomedical field.”
From Continued use of retracted papers: Temporal trends in citations and (lack of) awareness of retractions shown in citation contexts in biomedicine (2021) · cites this paper as Budd et al.’s (2016)
Other work has examined the dissemination of retracted papers in scientific communities, focusing mainly on the associated citation penalty.
“Other work has examined the dissemination of retracted papers in scientific communities, focusing mainly on the associated citation penalty (5, 14, 30–36).”
From Dynamics of cross-platform attention to retracted papers (2022) · cites this paper as [33]
Literature on case studies, specific disciplines, and the broader literature identifies that at least 80% of retracted articles receive positive post-retraction citations.
“These results align well with literature on case studies [7, 8], specific disciplines [9] and the broader literature [10], which identify that at least 80% of retracted articles receive positive post-retraction citations.”
From Media and social media attention to retracted articles according to Altmetric (2021) · cites this paper as [10]
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Cites
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- Authors
- Budd, J. M., Coble, Z., & Abritis, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Missouri (US)
- New York University (US)
- Retraction Watch New York NY
- Corresponding author
- Budd, John M.
- Coble, Zach
- Abritis, Alison
- Venue
- Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2016-01
- Volume
- 53
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-9
- ISSN
- 2373-9231 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2567443118
- Cited by
- 36
- References
- 22
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 1.25
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- archive.nyu.edu
- Locations
- Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology (publishedVersion)
- Faculty Digital Archive (New York University Florence) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Academic integrity and plagiarism
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Academic Publishing and Open Access
- Keywords
- retracted article, retraction reasons, biomedical literature, citation analysis, citation theory, science communication, scholarly publishing
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