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Article Retraction & Authorship Guidance

Retracted works in scientific publication

What is Retraction?

 

A published article that has been withdrawn by the author or editor of the publication is known as a Retracted Article. 

Retraction alerts readers to the credibility of a study and hence the published article.

 

 

National Library of Medicine defines retraction as 'a letter to the editor or an editor's statement that a previously published article was based on research that was either deliberately falsified or used unsubstantiated data'

Why Retraction happens

In general, Retraction happens as a result of Research Misconduct.

Office of Research Integrity (ORI) at the Department of Health and Human Services defines Research misconduct as "fabrication, falsification or plagiarism in proposing, performing or reviewing research, or in reporting research results....Research misconduct does not include honest error or differences of opinion" (42 C.F.R. Part 93) ( Office of Research Integrity. (2021). Frequently Asked Questions: what is research misconduct? https://ori.hhs.gov/frequently-asked-questions#5 )

Misconduct may include fraud or suspected fraud, duplicate publication, plagiarism, non-reproducibility or of results etc. Examples:

  1.  Inappropriate manipulation of figures 
  2.  Use of unreliable previously reported findings
  3.  Misrepresentation of scientific data

Error is another important cause of Retraction. Common errors causing Retraction include:

  1. Mismatched data
  2. Incomplete or partial references
  3. Grammar issues and mis-spelled words throughout the text