Systematic examination of pre‐ and post‐retraction citations
Open accessAbstract
Scientific retractions occur for a multitude of reasons. A growing body of research has studied the phenomenon of retraction through systematic analyses of the characteristics of retracted articles and their associated citations. In our study, we focus on the characteristics of articles that cite retracted articles, and the changes in citation dynamics pre‐ and post‐retraction. We leverage descriptive statistics and ego‐network methods to examine 4,871 retracted articles and their citations before and after retraction. Our retracted articles data was obtained from PubMed, Scopus, and Retraction Watch and their citing articles from Scopus. Our findings indicate a stark decrease in post‐retraction citations and that most of these citations came from countries different from the retracted article's country of publication. Citation context analyses of a subset of retracted articles also reveal that post‐retraction citations came from articles with disciplinary and geographical boundaries different from that of the retracted article.
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Prior work showed that although retracted papers and their authors were penalized with fewer citations, the retracted papers still circulated in scientific communities.
“Prior work showed that although retracted papers and their authors were penalized with fewer citations, the retracted papers still circulated in scientific communities.”
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 Dinh, Sarol et al., 2019
The Ego-network Analysis section reports that retracted papers received fewer citations than comparable papers after retraction, and the Conclusion says they continued to be cited across geographical and disciplinary boundaries. The paper does not report that the papers’ authors received fewer citations; its citation analysis concerns the papers, not their authors. Page numbers are unavailable in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredDinh et al. (2019) and Mott et al. (2019) reported that retracted papers' citation counts dropped after the retraction.
“Dinh et al. (2019) and Mott et al. (2019) reported that retracted papers’ citation counts dropped after the retraction.”
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 Dinh et al. (2019)
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Cites
Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications
Wasserman, S., & Faust, K. (1994) · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511815478 · Cited by 17,557 · cited 2× · see citing works
“Specifically, ego-network analysis [Wasserman and Faust, 1994] where the retracted paper is the ego, is useful to reveal the dynamics between”
MethodHow popular is your paper? An empirical study of the citation distribution
Redner, S. (1998) · The European Physical Journal B · doi:10.1007/s100510050359 · Cited by 1,509 · see citing works
Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications
Fang, F. C., Steen, R. G., & Casadevall, A. (2012) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1212247109 · Cited by 1,232 · cited 1× · see citing works
“Scientific misconduct was found to be the most prominent reason for retraction [Fang et al., 2012], accounting for 94 of the 288 retracted articles identified.”
Background(2010) · Cited by 643 · see citing works
Phenomena of Retraction: Reasons for Retraction and Citations to the Publications
Budd, J. M., Sievert, M., & Schultz, T. R. (1998) · JAMA · doi:10.1001/jama.280.3.296 · Cited by 230 · see citing works
The Retraction Penalty: Evidence from the Web of Science
Lu, S. F., Jin, G. Z., Uzzi, B., & Jones, B. (2013) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/srep03146 · Cited by 191 · see citing works
Post retraction citations in context: a case study
Bar-Ilan, J., & Halevi, G. (2017) · Scientometrics · doi:10.1007/s11192-017-2242-0 · Cited by 191 · see citing works
The Continued Use of Retracted, Invalid Scientific Literature
Pfeifer, M. P. (1990) · JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association · doi:10.1001/jama.1990.03440100140020 · Cited by 188 · see citing works
Guidelines for retracting articles
Barbour, V., Kleinert, S., Wager, E., & Yentis, S. (2009) · doi:10.24318/cope.2019.1.4 · Cited by 185 · cited 2× · see citing works
“The reasons for these problematic citations are two-fold: (1) citing articles did not show awareness of the retraction statuses of the articles they cited [Da Silva and Bornemann-Cimenti, 2017]; (2) retraction information is not consistently presented across platforms where citing authors obtain bibliographic records…”
BackgroundWhy do some retracted papers continue to be cited?
Teixeira da Silva, J. A., & Bornemann-Cimenti, H. (2017) · Scientometrics · doi:10.1007/s11192-016-2178-9 · Cited by 111 · see citing works
Empirical developments in retraction
Redman, B. K., Yarandi, H. N., & Merz, J. F. (2008) · Journal of Medical Ethics · doi:10.1136/jme.2007.023069 · Cited by 91 · see citing works
The (lack of) Impact of Retraction on Citation Networks
Madlock-Brown, C. R., & Eichmann, D. (2015) · Science and Engineering Ethics · doi:10.1007/s11948-014-9532-1 · Cited by 89 · see citing works
Bornemann-Cimenti, H., Szilagyi, I. S., & Sandner-Kiesling, A. (2016) · Science and Engineering Ethics · doi:10.1007/s11948-015-9680-y · Cited by 87 · see citing works
Citation of Retracted Articles in Engineering: A Study of the Web of Science Database
Rubbo, P., Pìlatti, L. A., & Picinin, C. T. (2018) · Ethics & Behavior · doi:10.1080/10508422.2018.1559064 · Cited by 35 · see citing works
Retractions in the medical literature: how can patients be protected from risk?
Steen, R. G. (2011) · Journal of Medical Ethics · doi:10.1136/medethics-2011-100184 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Hsiao, T.-K., & Schneider, J. (2021) · Quantitative Science Studies · doi:10.1162/qss_a_00155 · Cited by 98 · see citing works
Self-citationSchneider, J., Ye, D., Hill, A. M., & Whitehorn, A. S. (2020) · Scientometrics · doi:10.1007/s11192-020-03631-1 · Cited by 88 · see citing works
Self-citationLendvai, G. F., & Sasvári, P. (2026) · Journal of Information Science · doi:10.1177/01655515251362383 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
- Authors
- Dinh, L., Sarol, J., Cheng, Y., Hsiao, T., Parulian, N., & Schneider, J.
- Affiliations
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- School of Information Sciences University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign USA
- Corresponding author
- Dinh, Ly
- Cheng, Yi‐Yun
- Hsiao, Tzu‐Kun
- Parulian, Nikolaus
- Schneider, Jodi
- Venue
- Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2019-01
- Volume
- 56
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 390-394
- ISSN
- 2373-9231 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2979727582
- Cited by
- 23
- References
- 15
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 2
- FWCI
- 1.50
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Locations
- Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology (publishedVersion)
- Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) (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
- scientific retraction, citation dynamics, citing articles, citation context, disciplinary boundaries, geographic boundaries, ego network analysis, Retraction Watch
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