Correction and retraction policy

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) has produced a document titled “Retraction Guidelines”  (COPE Council, 2019) that outlines the following concepts

“The Purpose of Retraction

Retraction is a mechanism for correcting the literature and alerting readers to articles whose content or data are so seriously flawed or erroneous that their results and conclusions cannot be trusted. Unreliable content or data may result from honest mistakes, naive errors, or research misconduct. The primary goal of retraction is to correct the literature and ensure its integrity, rather than to punish the authors. Retractions may be used to alert readers to cases of duplicate publication, plagiarism, manipulation of the peer-review process, unauthorized reuse of material or data, copyright infringement or other legal issues, unethical research, and/or failure to disclose a significant competing interest that may have unduly influenced interpretations or recommendations.

Which publications should be retracted?

If only a small portion of an article contains flawed data or content, it is best to correct it. Partial retractions are not helpful because they make it difficult to determine the status of the article and which parts can be trusted. Similarly, if only a small portion of an article is plagiarized (for example, a few sentences in the discussion), editors should consider a correction (which could note that the text was used without proper acknowledgment and cite the source) rather than retracting the entire article, which may contain sound and original data.

What form should a retraction take?

In general, a retraction notice should refer to a single retracted article. Retraction notices should state the reasons and grounds for the retraction so that readers understand why the article is unreliable, and they should also specify who is retracting the article and, possibly, how the matter came to the journal’s attention (complainants may only be named with their permission).”