Nick Wise had a prolific start to his sleuthing journey. In July 2021, the fluid dynamics researcher started looking for tortured phrases in published papers, and has since had a hand in at least 1,000 retractions. He also helped identify unique phrases for the Tortured Phrases Detector, a function of the Problematic Paper Screener that … Continue reading When a sleuth gets hired by a publisher: A Q&A with Nick Wise
Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500. There are more than 55,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 300 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately … Continue reading Weekend reads: ‘The Discipline of Last Resort’; universities with the most retractions; ‘patent mills’
Last year, a researcher at a U.S. university received an email offering what the subject line described as a “great opportunity to publish an article.” The author of the email, Mahdi Shariati, an adjunct professor of civil engineering at Ton Duc Thang University, in Vietnam, said he had read one of the researcher’s papers and … Continue reading Highly cited engineer offers guaranteed publication, citations in return for coauthorship
A newly appointed dean at the University of Guelph in Canada has had two papers retracted for “evidence of authorship manipulation.” Another article by the researcher, Moncef Nehdi, formerly of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, seems to match a paper that had its authorship advertised for sale, according to a post on PubPeer. Nehdi told … Continue reading New engineering dean has two retractions for authorship manipulation
Web of Science, Clarivate’s influential database of abstracts and citations, has paused indexation of new content from the open-access journals Heliyon and Cureus, apparently due to concerns about the quality of their articles. Indexation in WoS or Scopus, another major bibliometric database owned by Elsevier, has become an important stamp of approval for scholarly publications … Continue reading Web of Science puts mega-journals Cureus and Heliyon on hold
The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400. There are more than 50,000 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 — … Continue reading Weekend reads: A plethora of misdeeds; big slowdown at several publishers; hydroxychloroquine paper retraction draws scrutiny
One in four papers on research involving scanning electron microscopy (SEM) misidentifies the specific instrument that was used, raising suspicions of misconduct, according to a new study. The work, published August 27 as a preprint on the Open Science Framework , examined SEM images in more than 1 million studies published by 50 materials science … Continue reading Exclusive: Thousands of papers misidentify microscopes, in possible sign of misconduct
A paper that cited a single researcher’s work in 53 of 64 references will be retracted following our inquiries, the publisher of the journal has told Retraction Watch. The article, ‘Culturally-informed for designing motorcycle fire rescue: Empirical study in developing country’, published in June in AIP Advances, overwhelmingly cites the work of Muhammed Imam Ammarullah, … Continue reading Exclusive: Publisher to retract article for excessively citing one researcher after Retraction Watch inquiry
In 2019, Filippo Berto was hailed as Norway’s most productive researcher, publishing a new study on average every two to three days. Five years on, a committee appointed by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), where Berto, a mechanical engineer, was based until last year, is recommending that the institution carries out an … Continue reading Norway university committee recommends probe into the country’s most productive researcher
Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400. There are more than 48,000 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 … Continue reading Weekend reads: ‘Objectionable conditions’ at psychiatry institute; impact factor obsession; Nobel winner acknowledges more errors