It's worth noting that typically, when a journal's impact factor is higher, the publisher is more likely to retract studies. For example, NEJM has the highest impact factor and the most retractions, followed by Nature. Journal of Immunology has the lowest impact factor and fewest retractions. There are exceptions, however, such as: The Lancet doesn’t retract many studies for its impact factor and Science has a low impact factor but retracts many studies.
Is the Paper Retracted?
To check if the paper has been retracted, look up the paper in PubMed by title. A retracted paper in PubMed will look like this:
You can also search for the article in PubMed and look for results with the same title as the article marked as erratum, correction, or republished.
Always check the reason for retraction. Sometimes a paper will be retracted because there is a duplicate of it in PubMed due to a publisher error. A reason like that is no cause for concern. Other reasons include:
- Self-plagiarism
- Plagiarism
- Faked data
- Fake peer review
- Publisher error
- Authorship issues (adding people to the paper who haven't agreed to be on it, e.g.)
- Image manipulation
- Fabrication or falsified data
- Legal reasons
- Study was not reproducible
Has the Author Ever Had a Paper Retracted?
Check if the authors have ever had a paper retracted or if they have a history of retractions. To do this, look in the Retraction Watch database. Their database is an Excel file you can download. Once you download it, use the find feature on your computer to look for someone's name.
Another trick: type in the name in Google and add (all one word) site:https://retractionwatch.com to your search to see if news articles on Retraction Watch have been published about this person.
Look Up the Paper in PubPeer
PubPeer is a whistleblowing platform where users can submit concerns about a paper. Search for the article's title or DOI number, then click the magnifying glass:
You'll see results listed. Click on the correct title:
You'll then see the comments listed. People will comment under their full name, so you can look them up on any search engine if you're curious about their credentials.
What Has Been Written in Response?
If you're looking at a paper in PubMed, check out the Cited By section to read papers that have cited yours:
Or you can search in PubMed for letters written in response. First, find the study's PMID number, listed in PubMed. Then conduct the following search:
PMID and ("letter" or "comment" or "response")
