Q. What are retracted articles? How can I find them?

Retracted articles are articles that have been withdrawn, or retracted, by the journal that published them. Retractions can be initiated by an author or a journal’s editor. They may occur for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to, honest errors in research, falsified or unethically manipulated data, unethical research practices, plagiarism, and undisclosed conflicts of interest.

0.006 percent of articles indexed in PubMed published between 1950 and 2004 have been retracted. Retractions have increased in recent years, but they remain rare.

There are several ways to find retracted articles or notices of retractions.

In PubMed:

1. Enter the following search string in the main search bar:

      "retracted article" OR "retraction"

2. Use the Article Types facet on the left-hand side of the results page to limit results to “retraction of publication” and “retracted publication.”

The “retraction of publication” and “retracted publication” filters can also be used with keyword searches and other types of searches to narrow more specific searches to retracted articles.

In Web of Science:

1. In the main search bar, use the drop-down menu to change “Topic” to “Document Type.”
2. From the drop-down menu on the left, select “Retracted Publication” or, if you also wish to see more general corrections, “Correction, Addition.”
3. Add another row to your search to search for retracted articles by topic, title, author, publication name, or year published.

In Scopus:

1. Add the following string to your search:

AND "retracted"

2. The results will include retracted articles, notices of retractions, and erratum (corrections) to articles. Some results may also be non-retracted, non-corrected articles that happen to have the word “retracted” in their abstract—such as in reference to a muscle—so view results carefully.

For more information on retractions, see this article.

Thielen, Joanna. "When Scholarly Publishing Goes Awry: Educating Ourselves and Our Patrons about Retracted Articles." Libraries and the Academy 18, no. 1 (2018): 183-198.