Reasons for Retraction
Retractions frequently occur because of research misconduct. Research misconduct is defined asone or all of the following1:
- Fabrication: making up data or results rather than having them come from actual research, and recording or reporting them.
- Falsification:manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes; changing or omitting data; providing results where the research is not accurately represented.
- Plagiarism:using another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving attribution.
Retractions can also occur because of dishonest or unethical behavior that does not fall under commonly accepted definitions of research misconduct. Such behavior may include:
- Forged authorship
- Fake peer reviews
- Failure to receive institutional review board approval for research on human subjects or animals
- Legal issues: copyright infringement or libelous content
- Not obtaining proper permissions to use data
- Failure to disclose a competing or potential conflict of interest that may influence interpretations or conclusions.
Retractions do not always indicate that research misconduct or unethical actions occurred. Articles may also be retracted for the following reasons:
- Errors in the research.
- Problems with its reproducibility.
- Poor management of data from the research
- Duplicate publishing:being submitted and accepted in more than one publication, or due to publisher error.
- Author(s) of published article requestinga retraction for any of these reasons.
1National Science Foundation (2018).Key regulations. Retrieved fromhttps://www.nsf.gov/oig/regulations/
