Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2012 Jul;100(3):184-9.
doi: 10.3163/1536-5050.100.3.008.

The persistence of error: a study of retracted articles on the Internet and in personal libraries

Philip M Davis  1
Affiliations

The persistence of error: a study of retracted articles on the Internet and in personal libraries

Philip M Davis. J Med Libr Assoc. 2012 Jul.

Erratum in

  • J Med Libr Assoc. 2012 Oct;100(4):329

Abstract

Objective: To determine the accessibility of retracted articles residing on non-publisher websites and in personal libraries.

Methods: Searches were performed to locate Internet copies of 1,779 retracted articles identified in MEDLINE, published between 1973 and 2010, excluding the publishers' website. Found copies were classified by article version and location. Mendeley (a bibliographic software) was searched for copies residing in personal libraries.

Results: Non-publisher websites provided 321 publicly accessible copies for 289 retracted articles: 304 (95%) copies were the publisher' versions, and 13 (4%) were final manuscripts. PubMed Central had 138 (43%) copies; educational websites 94 (29%); commercial websites 24 (7%); advocacy websites 16 (5%); and institutional repositories 10 (3%). Just 16 [corrected] (5%) full-article views included a retraction statement. Personal Mendeley libraries contained records for 1,340 (75%) retracted articles, shared by 3.4 users, on average.

Conclusions: The benefits of decentralized access to scientific articles may come with the cost of promoting incorrect, invalid, or untrustworthy science. Automated methods to deliver status updates to readers may reduce the persistence of error in the scientific literature.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Frequency of article retractions indexed in MEDLINE and prevalence of article copies discovered on public, non-publisher websites
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Budd J.M, Sievert M, Schultz T.R. Phenomena of retraction: reasons for retraction and citations to the publications. JAMA. 1998 Jul 15;280(3):296–7. doi: 10.1001/jama.280.3.296. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Redman B.K, Yarandi H.N, Merz J.F. Empirical developments in retraction. J Med Ethics. 2008 Nov 1;34(11):807–9. doi: 10.1136/jme.2007.023069. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Budd J.M, Coble Z.C, Anderson K.M. Retracted publications in biomedicine: cause for concern. 2011. pp. 390–5. Association of College and Research Libraries Conference; Philadelphia, PA; p.
    1. Pfeifer M.P, Snodgrass G.L. The continued use of retracted, invalid scientific literature. JAMA;1990 Mar 9;263(10):1420–3. doi: 10.1001/jama.1990.03440100140020. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Furman J.L, Jensen K, Murray F. Governing knowledge in the scientific community: exploring the role of retractions in biomedicine. Res Policy. 2012 Mar;41(2):276–90. doi: 10.1016/j.respol.2011.11.001. - DOI

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources