Retraction Watch readers have likely heard about papers showing evidence that they were written by ChatGPT, including one that went viral. We and others have reported on the phenomenon. Here’s a list — relying on a search strategy developed by Guillaume Cabanac, who has been posting the results on PubPeer — of such papers that … Continue reading Papers and peer reviews with evidence of ChatGPT writing
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 The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400.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 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 … Continue reading Weekend reads: Peak retraction?; another mass editorial board resignation; an autism paper retraction
A recent review article whose authors included two assistant professors at universities in the United States was written by a physician in India who is running a paper mill, Retraction Watch has learned. “Current Status and Emerging Trends in Colorectal Cancer Screening and Diagnostics” appeared last year in a special issue of Biosensors, an MDPI … Continue reading Exclusive: Physician in India who coauthored review with US profs is running a paper mill
Erick Jones, the dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Nevada in Reno, is under fire for publishing a journal filled with what one academic called “bizarre” and “incoherent” articles. Jones founded the International Supply Chain Technology Journal in 2015 and served as the publication’s editor-in-chief until September 2022, when he handed … Continue reading Engineering dean’s journal serves as a supply chain for ‘bizarre’ articles
Did 2023 feel like a year in which you couldn’t keep up, whether that was your to-do list, the news, or email? We know the feeling. Earlier this month, Nature reported that journals retracted more than 10,000 papers this year – so many, in fact, that we have not been able to enter them all … Continue reading The year at Retraction Watch, 2023: Whew!
On March 12, a senior administrator at a university in India sent a business proposal to a prolific economist in Ethiopia. If he joined the school’s stable of adjunct professors, the administrator promised, easy money could be made. All the economist had to do was “add our affiliation for incentives in your papers,” explained Lakshmi … Continue reading Exclusive: Researcher outs Indian university’s publishing scam after it fails to pay him
Marc Tessier-Lavigne, the former president of Stanford University who resigned earlier this year after an institutional research misconduct investigation, has retracted a paper from Nature. The journal’s editorial office marked another of Tessier-Lavigne’s articles with an expression of concern. The two Nature papers – which have together been cited more than 1,000 times, according to … Continue reading Former Stanford president retracts Nature paper as another gets expression of concern
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 to over 375. There are more than 44,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains well over 200 titles. … Continue reading Weekend reads: ‘What’s wrong with peer review?’; ‘how to catch a scientific fraud’; superconductor research falls apart
In February, David Allison came across a study with a familiar problem. The authors of the study purported to show an educational program helped women lose weight, but they had not directly compared the treatment and control groups. Instead, they’d used a statistically invalid method to compare changes within the groups. Allison, the dean at … Continue reading ‘Prompt and decisive’: Editor says obesity study will be retracted after critique
In 2023 alone, editors of eight journals on topics ranging from mathematics to biogeography all quit at once because of disputes with their publishing companies. Mass resignations of editors from scholarly journals aren’t new – the Open Access Directory has a list of some such actions going back to 1989. But the frequency appears to … Continue reading The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List