RETRACTION OF SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE: Analyzing the reasons for retractions across different areas of knowledge in Latin America

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.56294/dm2025638

Keywords:

Retractions, Latin America, Scientific Publications, Area of ​​Knowledge

Abstract

The article analyzes scientific retractions as essential tools to correct faulty literature, highlighting their increase in recent years. Although this phenomenon has been widely studied in health sciences, there is little research in other areas of knowledge and in regions such as Latin America. The objective of the study was to identify the reasons for retraction of scientific publications in the region between 1987 and 2024, using data from the Retraction Watch database. Using a transversal and descriptive approach, 614 documents were analyzed, classifying the reasons as misconduct, unintentional error and others. The results revealed that misconduct is the predominant cause in all areas, reaching its highest incidence in Business and Technology (91,9 %), while unintentional errors were more frequent in experimental disciplines. The study concludes with recommendations to reduce retractions and ensure greater.

References

1.- Casadevall, A, Steen, G, Fang, F. Sources of error in the retracted scientific literature. FASEB J. 2014; 28: 3847-3855. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1096/fj.14-256735.

2.- Marco-Cuenca G, Salvador-Oliván J, Arquero-Avilés R. Fraud in scientific publications in the European Union.An analysis through their retractions. 2021; 126:5143–5164. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-03977-0.

3.- Dal-Ré R. Analysis of biomedical Spanish articles retracted between 1970 and 2018. 2020; 154(4): 125-130.

4.- Liu W, Lei L. Retractions in the Middle East from 1999 to 2018: a bibliometric analysis. Scientometrics. 2021; 126:4687–4700. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-03919-w.

5.- Grieneisen, M. y Zhang, M. A Comprehensive Survey of Retracted Articles from the Scholarly Literature. Plos One, 2012;7(10): e44118. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0044118.

6.- Hasselmann F, Graf V, Schmidt M, Reinhart M. The visibility of scientific misconduct: A review of the literature on retracted journal Articles. Current Sociology Review. 2017;65(6): 814-845. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392116663807.

7.- Kocyigit B, Akyol A. Analysis of Retracted Publications in The Biomedical Literature from Turkey. J Korean Med Sci. 2022;37(18): e142. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2022.37.e142.

8.- Dell´Acqua-Cassao B, Herbella F, Schlottmann F, Patti M. Retracted articles in surgery journals. What are surgeons doing wrong? Surgery. 2018; 1201-1206. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surg.2018.01.015.

9.- Zilberman T. Margalit I. Yahav D. Tau N. Retracted publications in infectious diseases and clinical microbiology literatura. 2023; 29(11): 1454.e1-1454.e3. DOI: 10.1016/j.cmi.2023.07.022.

10.- Freijedo-Farinas F, Ruano-Raviña A, Pérez-Ríos M, Ross J, Candal-Pedreira C. Biomedical retractions due to misconduct in Europe: characterization and trends in the last 20 years. Scientometrics. 2024;129:2867–2882. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-04992-7.

11.-Levett, J.J., Elkaim, L.M., Alotaibi, N.M. et al. Publication retraction in spine surgery: a systematic review. Eur Spine J. 2023;32: 3704–3712. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00586-023-07927-7.

12.- Rubbo P, Helmann C, Santos C, Pilatti L. Retractions in the engineering field: A study on the web of science database. Ethics & Behavior, 2017;29(2):141–155. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10508422.2017.1390667.

13.- Solomon D, Heckman, C, Hubbard, D. Retractions in Scopus: An Engineering Journal Articles Investigation. 2022;42(3): 353-366. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0194262X.2022.2098892.

14.- Halevi G. Why Articles in Arts and Humanities Are Being Retracted? Scientometrics. 2020:36:55-62. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-019-09699-9.

15.- Karabag S, Berggren C. Retraction, dishonesty and plagiarism: Analysis of a crucial issue for academic publishing, and the inadequate responses from leading journals in economics and management disciplines. Journal of Applied Economics and Business Research, 2012;2(3):172–183.

16.- Ghorbi A, Fazeli-Varzaneg M, Ghaderi-Azad E, Ausloos M, Kozak M. Retracted papers by Iranian authors: causes, journals, time lags, affiliations, collaborations. Scientometrics 2021;126:7351–7371. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-04104-9.

17.- Elango B, Kozak M, Rajendran P. Analysis of retractions in Indian Science. Scientometrics. 2019;119:1081–1094. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-019-03079-y.

18.- Almeida R, de Albuquerque Rocha K, Catelani F, Fontes-Pereira A, Vasconcelos S. Plagiarism Allegations Account for Most Retractions in Major Latin American/Caribbean Databases. Sci Eng Ethics, 2016;22:1447–1456. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-015-9714-5.

19.- Herrera-Añazco P, Fernandez-Guzmán D, Barriga-Chambi F, Benites-Meza J, Caira-Chuquineyra B, Benites-Zapata A. Retraction of health science articles by researchers in Latin America and the Caribbean: A scoping review. Developing World Bioethics. 2024;9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12439.

20.- Stavale R, Ferreira G, Martins J, Zicker F, Garbi M, de Oliveira C, Guilhem D. Research misconduct in health and life sciences research: A systematic review of retracted literature from Brazilian institutions. Plos One. 2019;14(4):e0214272. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214272.

21.- Elango B. Characteristics of retracted editorial articles in the biomedical literature. Scientometrics, 2022;127: 1431–1438 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-04263-9

Downloads

Published

2025-01-24

Issue

Section

Original

How to Cite

1.
Martínez-Rojas E, Zahn-Muñoz C, Espinaza-Solar R. RETRACTION OF SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE: Analyzing the reasons for retractions across different areas of knowledge in Latin America. Data and Metadata [Internet]. 2025 Jan. 24 [cited 2025 Mar. 12];4:638. Available from: https://dm.ageditor.ar/index.php/dm/article/view/638