Citation of Retracted Articles in Engineering: A Study of the Web of Science Database

Abstract

The objective of this study is to compare the quantity of citations that retracted and nonretracted articles received in engineering based on articles indexed in the Web of Science database and published between 1945 and 2015. For data analysis, the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences was used along with the Kolmogorov–Smirnov, Mann–Whitney, Tukey–Kramer tests and descriptive statistics. The data set included 238 retracted and 236 nonretracted articles, with the retracted articles cited 2,348 times and nonretracted articles cited 2,957 times. The results highlight that retraction does not end citation, thus threatening scientific credibility.

KEYWORDS:

• citation
• self-citation
• retraction
• nonretraction

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Correction Statement

Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/hebh.

Article based on the thesis “A desonestidade científica e seu reflexo na retratação de artigos indexados na base Web of Science, no período de 1945 a 2015 [Scientific dishonesty and its reflection in article retractions indexed in the Web of Science database, from 1945 to 2015]”, successfully defended at the Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná in 2018.

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ In addition, 20 of the retractions in 2009 were issued by the journal Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (JCR 1.088).