- Case
Retraction or correction?
A publisher received communication alleging that a published article in one of their journals contained large portions of text taken without attribution from another article. Upon review of these allegations, it was determined that a table in the article had been reproduced. In the table the authors did not put direct quoted material within quote marks or otherwise identify the quoted material… - CaseCase Closed
Erratum query
We have been notified that an erratum is about to be published on a Research article in Journal A, which is one of the key references supporting a Review article subsequently published in Journal B. All parties are agreed that the erratum (which corrects an oversight in reporting methodology) in no way affects either the data presented in the paper or the conclusions reached. Questio… - CaseCase Closed
Duplicate publication
We were made aware of a double publication in our journal dating from 20 years ago. A paper which was originally published in French in another journal the year previously was translated and published in our journal. The editorial paperwork is long lost, however, the principal author is a member of our editorial board. They readily responded and explained that it was not uncommon at that time t… - CaseCase Closed
Withdrawal of an article
We received a manuscript for consideration for publication in one of our journals (Journal A). During the peer review process we became aware that the manuscript had already been published in another journal (Journal B). When we asked the authors about this they said that they had asked the other journal to withdraw their manuscript before publication but this had not been done. We rejected the… - CaseCase Closed
Editor adding reference to an author's work
Several years ago Author A was asked by Editor B to contribute an essay to a publication. The book took a long time to complete and underwent many modifications. When the book was published Author A noticed that several edits had been made to the text without Author A being informed and which Author A did not approve. The most notable edit is an added reference to a piece of text. The added ref… - CaseCase Closed
Letter to the editor and retraction notice
A Letter to the Editor was submitted to Journal A – this Letter contained major criticisms of a paper previously published in Journal A, in particular of the statistical analysis underpinning the conclusions and the study design, and called for its retraction. The Editor sent the Letter out for peer review and some revisions were made by the authors. Based on both the content of the Letter and… - CaseCase Closed
Retraction of article and accompanying editorial
The authors of a published article have asked to have an article retracted for internal policy reasons. However, we have solicited and published an editorial which accompanies this article and specifically references it within the text. We are unsure how to handle this. Question for COPE Council Does COPE have any policy or protocol for cases like this? … - CaseCase Closed
Query about errata
Your retraction guidelines include comments about corrections. They also advise that notices of retraction should be linked to the original retracted articles. But, it is not 100% clear whether notices of correction (that is, errata and corrigenda, as opposed to retractions) should also be linked directly to/embedded in the origi… - CaseCase Closed
Call for retraction of a commentary
A journal received two emails from different individuals, both critical of a commentary published in the journal. One cited serious errors, the other noted inaccurate statements, incorrect literature citations and fundamental flaws regarding misinterpretations or over-interpretations which could affect public health. The second email also cited the potential for the commentary to be used for (u… - CaseCase Closed
Citing a retracted paper
Our journal has recently retracted three articles after one author was found by their institution to have fabricated data and destroyed evidence. It appears that the one author acted alone; no evidence has been found of complicity by coauthors, and the institution found some evidence suggesting that the one author defrauded their coauthors. We would like to know whether future articles can cite… - CaseCase Closed
Author with recidivist behaviour involving simultaneous submissions
An author submitted manuscript A to Journal 1 and to Journal 2 in consecutive months, both journals published by the same publisher. The author had previously submitted another manuscript to Journal 3 and informed the journal that the paper had been already published by another journal when the proofs were received. Journal 1 and Journal 2 have decided to withdraw the manuscript. Journa… - CaseCase Closed
Enquiry regarding copyright/retractions
A journal received a paper that had previously been retracted from another publisher’s journal as a result of malpractice in the peer review process (a result of reviewer/editor misconduct rather than actions on the part of the authors). Having reviewed various sources of guidance, it would appear that there is some precedent for re-publication of retracted papers (suitably corrected or… - CaseCase Closed
Plagiarism case
Journal X was contacted by Author A, who claimed that a paper published in that journal ten years previously (by Author B) was plagiarised from Author A’s article in Journal Y published approximately ten years prior to that. Author A requested the retraction of Author B’s paper. Journal X has run plagiarism software on both papers to see the degree of text replication and it is not signi… - CaseCase Closed
Retraction request after university investigation found no evidence of fraud
Dr X claimed to have found fabrication and falsification of data in an article submitted for publication by Dr Y. Dr Y’s university investigated and found no evidence of fraud but a genuine error in the figure. Dr X provided more information and a further investigation was initiated. It again dismissed the complaint as unfounded. The paper was then published. Dr X is now asking the journal for… - CaseCase Closed
Critical comment and conflict of interest
Journal A received an article by Dr X (Article 1) commenting on another author’s work (Dr. Y) which had been published in Journal A and another journal (Journal B) of a different publisher. Because the scientific arguments were involved, and because the articles being criticised had been cited many times in the literature, the Editors of Journal A rejected Dr X's request to publish the work as… - CaseCase Closed
Authors used pseudonyms on a published article
A publisher has recently become aware that an article published in one of their journals two years ago uses pseudonyms instead of the real names of the two authors. Communication with the corresponding author has confirmed the use of pseudonyms. The corresponding author has informed the publisher that the authors used pseudonyms in order to obtain a fair review of the paper (the paper is in an… - CaseCase Closed
Concerns regarding image manipulation and inconsistent figure legends
A journal received a complaint from readership about manipulation of images of gels and also of some figures which had been published as part of a thesis with different sample legends. The authors were contacted to provide explanations for the observed inconsistencies. The authors provided full images and then an official expert analysis, but the Editor-in-Chief did not feel that these response… - CaseCase Closed
Dispute over submitted comment and the right to be forgotten
Some time after publishing a paper, a journal received a comment highlighting serious issues with the methods reported, and claiming that the conclusions could not be trusted. The comment was 13 pages long and rather technical in nature, so it was peer reviewed. The journal contacted the authors to respond to the comment but they replied that they wished instead to completely rem… - CaseCase Closed
Retraction because of scientific misconduct even if the conclusions are sound?
A journal was alerted to potential image manipulation in four papers published over the course of twelve years by the same corresponding author. The journal contacted the corresponding author who provided some raw data for some of the papers but not all of them, and was not able to explain the apparent manipulation (which included, in one paper, a duplicate image from a paper published in anoth… - CaseCase Closed
Two cases of double submission
Journal A is dealing with two separate cases of double submission: Case 1: Manuscript X was submitted to the journal. Two rounds of revision were suggested by the editor in charge, following comments by the referee, and an amended version was submitted. Following routine plagiarism detection checking, the editorial team found that a substantial part of the manuscript was similar to artic…