Abstract
We examine the number of citations in 10 highly cited retracted papers, and compare their current pre- and post-citation values. We offer some possible explanations for the continued citation of these retracted papers, and point out some of the risks that may be involved for the communities that continue to cite them. In general, retracted papers should not be cited, but often there is fault with unclear publisher web-sites, the existence of pirate web-sites or sites that display copies of the unretracted version of the paper, or even the insistent citation of a retracted paper because the results remain valid, or because the authors (most likely) refuse to accept the retracted status of that paper, or continue to believe that the core findings of the study remain valid.
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Appendix: An example (Voinnet et al. 2003) in the Web of Science™ (WoS) in which there is a discrepancy between the number in the list of citing papers (in this case 941), and the number in the list of total cites from journals indexed by WoS (in this case 977)
Appendix: An example (Voinnet et al. 2003) in the Web of Science™ (WoS) in which there is a discrepancy between the number in the list of citing papers (in this case 941), and the number in the list of total cites from journals indexed by WoS (in this case 977)
“An enhanced transient expression system in plants based on suppression of gene silencing by the p19 protein of tomato bushy stunt virus (Retracted article. See vol. 84, pg. 846, 2015)
By: Voinnet, O; Rivas, S; Mestre, P; et al.
PLANT JOURNAL Volume: 33 Issue: 5 Pages: 949-956 Published: MAR 2003
View Abstract
Times Cited: 977
(from Web of Science Core Collection)”
Then clicking the 977, i.e. listing the citing papers, the following result:
“Citing Articles: 941
(from Web of Science Core Collection)
For: An enhanced transient expression system in plants based on suppression of gene silencing by the p19…More
Times Cited Counts 1018 in All Databases
977 in Web of Science Core Collection
951 in BIOSIS Citation Index
38 in Chinese Science Citation Database
0 data sets in Data Citation Index
0 publication in Data Citation Index
6 in Russian Science Citation Index
2 in SciELO Citation Index”.
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Teixeira da Silva, J.A., Dobránszki, J. Highly cited retracted papers. Scientometrics 110, 1653–1661 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-016-2227-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-016-2227-4