Search Results for: sting

The “phantom reference:” How a made-up article got almost 400 citations

Here’s a mystery: How did a nonexistent paper rack up hundreds of citations? Pieter Kroonenberg, an emeritus professor of statistics at Leiden University in The Netherlands, was puzzled when he tried to locate a paper about academic writing and discovered the article didn’t exist. In fact, the journal—Journal of Science Communications—also didn’t exist. Perhaps Kroonenberg’s … Continue reading The “phantom reference:” How a made-up article got almost 400 citations

Weekend reads: Publishing’s day of reckoning; an Impact Factor discount — on lunch; a prize for negative results

The week at Retraction Watch featured mass resignations from a journal’s editorial board, software that writes papers for you, and a retracted retraction. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Newly released AI software writes papers for you — what could go wrong?

This week, we received a press release that caught our attention: A company is releasing software it claims will write manuscripts using researchers’ data.  The program, dubbed “Manuscript Writer,” uses artificial intelligence (AI) to generate papers, according to the company that created it, sciNote LLC. A spokesperson explained the software generates a first draft the … Continue reading Newly released AI software writes papers for you — what could go wrong?

17 Johns Hopkins researchers resign in protest from ed board at Nature journal

More than a dozen members of the editorial board at Scientific Reports have resigned after the journal decided not to retract a 2016 paper that a researcher claims plagiarized his work. As of this morning, 19 people — mostly researchers based at Johns Hopkins — had stepped down from the board, according to Hopkins researcher … Continue reading 17 Johns Hopkins researchers resign in protest from ed board at Nature journal

Caught Our Notice: Ethics, data concerns prompt another retraction for convicted researchers

Title: Unravelling the influence of mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) on cognitive-linguistic processing: A comparative group analysis What Caught our Attention: RW readers might already be familiar with Caroline Barwood and Bruce Murdoch, two researchers from Australia who had the rare distinction of being criminally charged for research misconduct. Both Barwood and Murdoch received suspended sentences after being found guilty of multiple … Continue reading Caught Our Notice: Ethics, data concerns prompt another retraction for convicted researchers

To catch a fraudster: Publisher’s image screening cuts down errata, “repeat offenders”

When a publisher rolls out image screening on its journals over an eight-year-period, some surprising things happen. For one, researchers whose papers were flagged are less likely to make the same mistake again. That’s according to new findings presented by the American Physiological Society (APS), which began increasingly checking images in accepted papers for splicing and other … Continue reading To catch a fraudster: Publisher’s image screening cuts down errata, “repeat offenders”

Science retracts paper after Nobel laureate’s lab can’t replicate results

Science is retracting a 2014 paper from the lab of a Nobel winner after replication attempts failed to conclusively support the original results. In January, Bruce Beutler, an immunologist at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, emailed Science editor-in-chief Jeremy Berg to report that … Continue reading Science retracts paper after Nobel laureate’s lab can’t replicate results

“My dog ate the data:” Eight excuses journal editors hear

As a journal editor, are you tired of hearing the same excuses from authors who are facing allegations of problematic data? If so, you’re not alone. Recently, an editor of the journal Oncogene co-authored an editorial in the journal listing the types of excuses he often hears — and why none of them is valid. … Continue reading “My dog ate the data:” Eight excuses journal editors hear

Estimate: Nearly 33,000 papers include misidentified cell lines. Experts talk ways to combat growing problem

Although most researchers realize too many are using misidentified cell lines in their work, they may be shocked to see the scope of the problem: Approximately 32,755 articles report on research that relied on misidentified cells, according to a new report in PLoS ONE. And even though more people may be aware of the problem, it … Continue reading Estimate: Nearly 33,000 papers include misidentified cell lines. Experts talk ways to combat growing problem

After journal retracts their paper, authors post rebuttal on arXiv

In July 2017, just days after accepting and publishing a paper, a physics journal discovered “several scientific errors” and decided to retract it. But the authors—Alexander Kholmetskii and Tolga Yarman—strongly objected to the journal’s decision, so much so they published a detailed rebuttal to the retraction on the preprint server arXiv. The paper explores a … Continue reading After journal retracts their paper, authors post rebuttal on arXiv