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Retractions and post-retraction citations in the COVID-19 infodemic

is Academia spreading misinformation?

  • The speed in producing information and the rush to publish scientific articles on COVID-19 in several knowledge areas have resulted in what is known as an infodemic also in the scientific field, potentially producing inaccurate information and sources of misinformation at scholarly communication. This has led to some articles being retracted or withdrawn due to unintentional errors or deliberate misconduct, but they continue to be cited. This article (i) gives an overview of the COVID-19 retracted articles and preprints, and (ii) analyses a set of post-retraction citations in the context of the COVID-19 infodemic. We analyzed 56 retracted articles and preprints by using the list available in the section on “retracted coronavirus (COVID-19) papers” in the Retraction Watch (RW) webpage. We found that 64.3% of these retractions were articles published in journals, 33.9% were uploaded in preprints servers, and 1.8% conference papers. We also analyzed 162 eligible articles out of 612 records identified by using the Google Scholar search engine. This research found that an article from The Lancet continued to be cited even after being retracted. In this case, we identified 214 post-retraction citations, of which 38% were negative (n=81), 32% were neutral (n=69), and 30% were positive citations (n=64)

    Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia (Ibict)

    Brasília, DF, Brasil
    Setor de Autarquias Sul (SAUS), Quadra 5, Lote 6, Bloco H
    70070-912
    www.ibict.br
    Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil
    Programa de Pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação
    Rua Lauro Muller, 455 - 4º Andar - Botafogo
    22290-160
    www.ppgci.ufrj.br

    Contato

    Christine Alvarez

    • +55-21-3873-9454
    • liinc@ibict.br

    Liinc em Revista ISSN 1808-3536

    Liinc em Revista é licenciada sob CC BY 4.0

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    Desenvolvido por Commscientia