The world, it seems, cannot get enough of Sokal-type hoaxes. A French journal, Sociétés, has retracted an article allegedly penned by one Jean-Marc Tremblay but actually written by two sociologists, Manuel Quinon and Arnaud Saint-Martin, who spoofed the work of the journal’s editor, Michel Maffesoli. As the Crooked Timber blog explains, the article, “Automobilités postmodernes: … Continue reading So-kalled research: French sociology journal retracts hoax article
Researcher Alison Abritis earned her Ph.D. in Public Health, with a concentration in toxicology and risk assessment. Her dissertation focused on retractions and corrections, or the lack thereof, arising from misconduct findings by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI). She found that less than half of the findings resulted in a published retraction or correction, and even fewer … Continue reading Meet the Retraction Watch staff
This week at Retraction Watch featured a change of heart by a journal, and a look at Nature’s addition of double-blind peer review. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Between Mars and Jupiter floats a little rock with big dreams. For three whole weeks in January and February, it was designated as 2015 BS515, a near Earth object, one of the many space rocks that astrophysicists keep an eye on for their potential to strike our planet. But then on February 12 came the announcement: … Continue reading Harvard-Smithsonian space center retracts ruling on asteroid
This week at Retraction Watch, an explosives paper burned up, and we found that we’re cited in a $8 million lawsuit. Here’s what’s happening elsewhere:
This week at Retraction Watch featured polar opposites: Two new entries in our “doing the right thing” category, and one in our plagiarism euphemism parade. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
In April 2014, we wrote about the case of a former hydrologist at the University of Kansas (KU), Marios Sophocleous, who had plagiarized in at least seven studies, two of which were retracted by the journal Ground Water. At the time, we mentioned two other articles, in the Hydrogeology Journal, that appeared destined for retraction … Continue reading Water under the bridge? Hydrology journals won’t retract plagiarized papers despite university request
This was a week of stem cell retractions, fake peer reviews, legal threats, and we announced that we’ve been awarded a $400,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Fake peer reviews: They’re all the rage. Sixteen papers are being retracted across three Elsevier journals after the publisher discovered that one of the authors, Khalid Zaman, orchestrated fake peer reviews by submitting false contact information for his suggested reviewers. This particular kind of scam has been haunting online peer review for a few years now, as loyal Retraction … Continue reading Elsevier retracting 16 papers for faked peer review
This week, we published a feature in Nature on how some researchers are gaming peer review systems to review their own papers. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: