Definition

The retraction is a public statement made about an earlier statement that is going to be removed from the journal. The retraction may be initiated by the editors of the journal, or by the author(s) of the paper. However, since the editors are responsible for the journal’s content, they always make the final decision to retract the material. The journal editors may retract publications even if all or some of the authors refuse to retract the publication.

When should a publication be retracted?

Only published items can be retracted. Publications should be retracted as soon as possible when the journal editors are convinced that the publication is seriously flawed and misleading (or is redundant or plagiarized).

What Are the Compelling Reasons?

• Plagiarism
• Bogus claims of authorship
• Multiple submission
• Fraudulent use of data
• Infringements of professional ethical codes
• Redundant publication
• Failure to disclose a major competing interest

Should retraction be applied in cases of disputed authorship?

Authors sometimes request that articles are retracted when authorship is disputed after publication. If there is no reason to doubt the validity of the findings or the reliability of the data it is not appropriate to retract a publication solely for an authorship dispute. In such cases, the journal editor should inform those who are involved in the dispute that s/he cannot adjudicate in such cases, but they may be willing to publish a correction to the author/contributor list if the authors/contributors (or their institutions) provide appropriate proof that such a change is justified.

Article Retraction Process

• A retraction note entitled “Retraction: [article title]” signed by the authors and/or the editor is published in the paginated part of a subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the contents list.
• In the electronic version, a link is made to the original article.
• The original article is retained unchanged saving for a watermark on the .pdf file version on the each page to indicate that it is “retracted.”
• The HTML version of the document is removed.

Wager E, Barbour V, Yentis S, Kleinert S. Retraction Guidelines. Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Sep 2009. Available from: http://publicationethics.org/files/retraction%20guidelines.pdf

Related Pages

• Withdrawal Regulations
• Retraction Regulations
• Withdrawal vs. Regulations