ArticleJournal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA2012
The persistence of error: a study of retracted articles on the Internet and in personal libraries.
Article in Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 75 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Reducing the Inadvertent Spread of Retracted Science: recommendations from the RISRS report.Research integrity and peer review · 2022Article
- Keep calm and carry on: moral panic, predatory publishers, peer review, and the emperor's new clothes.Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA · 2022Article
- Scite.Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA · 2021Review
- Article
- Article
- The continued citation of retracted publications in dentistry.Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA · 2020Article
- Comprehensive Analysis of Retracted Publications in Dentistry: A 23-Year Review.International journal of dentistry · 2020Article
- Correcting duplicate publications: follow up study of MEDLINE tagged duplications.Biochemia medica · 2019Article
- Opinion: Medical misinformation in the era of Google: Computational approaches to a pervasive problem.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2018Article
- The visibility of scientific misconduct: A review of the literature on retracted journal articles.Current sociology. La Sociologie contemporaine · 2017Review
- Concern noted: A descriptive study of editorial expressions of concern in PubMed and PubMed Central.Research integrity and peer review · 2017Article
- Perpetuation of Retracted Publications Using the Example of the Scott S. Reuben Case: Incidences, Reasons and Possible Improvements.Science and engineering ethics · 2016Article
- When things go wrong: correcting the scientific record.The EMBO journal · 2015Article
- What studies of retractions tell us.Journal of microbiology & biology education · 2014Article
- Retractions of scientific publications: responsibility and accountability.Biochemia medica · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo determine the accessibility of retracted articles residing on non-publisher websites and in personal libraries.
methodsSearches were performed to locate Internet copies of 1,779 retracted articles identified in MEDLINE, published between 1973 and 2010, excluding the publishers' website. Found copies were classified by article version and location. Mendeley (a bibliographic software) was searched for copies residing in personal libraries.
resultsNon-publisher websites provided 321 publicly accessible copies for 289 retracted articles: 304 (95%) copies were the publisher' versions, and 13 (4%) were final manuscripts. PubMed Central had 138 (43%) copies; educational websites 94 (29%); commercial websites 24 (7%); advocacy websites 16 (5%); and institutional repositories 10 (3%). Just 16 [corrected] (5%) full-article views included a retraction statement. Personal Mendeley libraries contained records for 1,340 (75%) retracted articles, shared by 3.4 users, on average.
conclusionsThe benefits of decentralized access to scientific articles may come with the cost of promoting incorrect, invalid, or untrustworthy science. Automated methods to deliver status updates to readers may reduce the persistence of error in the scientific literature.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.