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The week at Retraction Watch featured:
- Engineering dean’s journal serves as a supply chain for ‘bizarre’ articles
- Econ journal board quits en masse because Wiley ‘appeared to emphasize quantity over quality’
- Elsevier investigating papers after IEEE finds ‘self-plagiarism’
- Stanford prof who sued critics loses appeal against $500,000 in legal fees
- Highly cited scientist published dozens of papers after his death
Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400. There are more than 47,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 250 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers? What about The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List?
Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):
- That paper no one could stop talking about for 24 hours has been retracted.
- “China conducts first nationwide review of retractions and research misconduct.”
- “A Columbia Surgeon’s Study Was Pulled. He Kept Publishing Flawed Data.”
- “Vendor offering citations for purchase is latest bad actor in scholarly publishing.”
- “Is ‘silent’ outcome switching in clinical trials research misconduct?”
- “Harvard Extension School Administrator Accused of Plagiarism in Anonymous Complaint.”
- “Overall, ChatGPT does not yet seem to be accurate enough to be trusted for any formal or informal research quality evaluation tasks.”
- “The Perplexing Puzzle of the Top 2% Scientists List.”
- “Scholarly Debate About Drug Efficacy in Scientific Journals Is ‘Protected Speech,’ Not Libel.”
- “Passion is not misconduct.”
- “Why do some academics review so many journal papers?”
- “Science hype has become a serious problem.”
- “The Poor Reputation of Our Scientists.”
- “A once-ignored community of science sleuths now has the research community on its heels.”
- Open peer review “is growing, but still far from common practice.”
- “Plagiarism Has No Place at Harvard — or Anywhere Else In Higher Ed.”
- “How common is academic plagiarism?”
- Kiel University’s president resigns after image manipulation allegations.
- Oops. “The Editor has retracted this article because, owing to an administration error in the editorial office, it was published before the peer review process had been undertaken.”
- “Nearly 500 clinical trials carried out in Nordic countries since 2016 remain unpublished.”
- “I thought I could conquer academic writing on my own—until I learned better.”
- “Peer review isn’t perfect − I know because I teach others how to do it and I’ve seen firsthand how it comes up short.”
- “Worse than Plagiarism: False Firstness Claims and Dismissive Literature Reviews.”
- “An accidental discovery of scientific fraud.”
- “Retraction of Academic Literature: The Urology Perspective.”
- “When did a rejection of an already accepted article become a thing?” Archive.
- “‘Publish or Perish’: The dark side of tenured professorship.”
- “The court’s judgment on the true identity of the author responsible for identity fraud…” A letter about a case we covered in 2022.
- “A flurry of research misconduct cases has universities scrambling to protect themselves.”
- “How journals are fighting back against a wave of questionable images.”
- “Genetics journal retracts 18 papers from China due to human rights concerns.”
- “The Scandals Rocking Cancer Science Matter to Your Health.”
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Re: “When did a rejection of an already accepted article become a thing?”
I can’t believe someone would fight that hard over getting into a Frontiers journal. Frontiers doesn’t have the best reputation at the best of times, so surely shrugging it off is the best course of action…
I also don’t necessarily have a problem with a publisher declining to follow through with publishing an accepted article. I think of it like this: accepting a paper is like accepting a marriage proposal – the deed isn’t done until you say “I do” and sign the papers. Just as there are reasons an engagement can be called off there are reasons a publisher may not end up actually publishing an accepted manuscript. For example, I once had an author who wasn’t happy with their proofs (despite our best efforts). We can’t publish a paper if they’re not happy so I returned their manuscript to them and wished them well publishing elsewhere (which they did). It’s not ideal but it happens.
“I think of it like this: accepting a paper is like accepting a marriage proposal ”
You don’t seem to be someone who should be exercising editorial responsibilities, frankly. I always took my responsibilities a bit more seriously than that. But then, so did the journals I worked with.
I wouldn’t want him to offer to marry my daughter either.
Many years (many decades) ago I came across this line from James Thurber (which he sets up well, but I have no room for that here).
“As for your poor baby – but I am getting surly now and will
close …”
I try to keep it in mind, not always successfully. Anyway I was amused by your remark, which fact will no doubt earn me some few days more in Purgatory.
You must receive many more marriage proposals than me! I would have thought giving up an engagement is a big deal – weddings are easily 10x more expensive than Frontiers papers, after all.
99% of the time accepted will end up published, but I wouldn’t think either publisher or author is absolutely required to follow through if they have a good reason (eg error discovered, integrity concerns, disagreement over publication terms).