When you think of valuable items to steal, you might imagine cash, cars, or jewelry. But what about journals? That’s what my colleagues and I from Disseropedia, the journals project of Dissernet, which was created to fight plagiarism in Russia, recently found. The story begins when my Dissernet colleague Andrei Rostovtsev discovered several cases of … Continue reading The case of the stolen journal
Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured: the retraction of a paper that editors called “deeply offensive … Continue reading Weekend reads: Sexism in a medical textbook; proof Reviewer 2 is a jerk; COVID-19 and research misconduct
Alison Avenell first came across The Yamaguchi Osteoporosis Study (YOPS) when she was working on a 2014 Cochrane Review on bone fractures. She cited the study but felt something was off about it. “I suppose, together with my collaborators over the years, we developed sort of antennae for rather suspicious looking studies,” Avenell, of the … Continue reading An influential osteoporosis study is “likely fraudulent” — but not retracted
Often, when confronted with allegations of errors in papers they have published, journal editors encourage researchers to submit letters to the editor. Based on what we hear from such letter writers, however, the journals don’t make publication an easy process. Here’s one such story from a group at Indiana University: Luis M. Mestre, Stephanie L. … Continue reading Tortuous and torturous: Why publishing a critical letter to the editor is so difficult
An Elsevier journal is wearing an omelet on its face after accepting a paper by a group of authors who have completely disavowed the work. Oh, and no one seems to know who one of the authors is, which makes the second time inside of a month that we’ve reported on a case like this. … Continue reading Meet Bo Liu, international man or woman of scientific mystery
Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured: The withdrawal of a COVID-19 scoring tool based on Surgisphere … Continue reading Weekend reads: A wake-up call?; paper’s author accused of racism; an editor resigns over personal attacks
In April of this year, Corneel Vandelanotte realized something had gone wrong with a paper he had recently published. First, there was a post about his paper by Nick Brown, a scientific sleuth, questioning the results, ethics, and authors behind the work. That was followed by a comment on PubPeer by Elisabeth Bik, another scientific … Continue reading ‘How I got fooled’: The story behind the retraction of a study of gamers
Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. It was a particularly busy week at Retraction Watch, featuring retractions from four of the top … Continue reading Weekend reads: Top journals under scrutiny; a toxic legacy; science by press release
Following an investigation prompted by a whistleblower, a university in Australia has recommended that one of its researchers retract two papers, Retraction Watch has learned. The reviews, “Cryptography and State-of-the-art Techniques” and “An Advanced Survey on Cloud Computing and State-of-the-art Research Issues,” were both published in 2012 in the International Journal of Computer Science Issues … Continue reading University recommends retraction of two computing papers for plagiarism
Some words do more work in sentences than others. Take the example of the word “negligence,” which in the case of the following retraction notice is a veritable beast of burden. The 2019 article, “Conservative management of subglottic stenosis with home based tracheostomy care: A retrospective review of 28 patients,” appeared in the International Journal … Continue reading ‘Negligence’ — a lot of it — leads to a retraction