Lu Susan Feng, Jin Ginger Zhe, Uzzi Brian, Jones Benjamin
Simon School of Business, University of Rochester.
Sci Rep. 2013 Nov 6;3:3146. doi: 10.1038/srep03146.
Scientific articles are retracted at increasing rates, with the highest rates among top journals. Here we show that a single retraction triggers citation losses through an author's prior body of work. Compared to closely-matched control papers, citations fall by an average of 6.9% per year for each prior publication. These chain reactions are sustained on authors' papers (a) published up to a decade earlier and (b) connected within the authors' own citation network by up to 4 degrees of separation from the retracted publication. Importantly, however, citation losses among prior work disappear when authors self-report the error. Our analyses and results span the range of scientific disciplines.
科学文章的撤稿率在不断上升，顶级期刊中的撤稿率最高。我们在此表明，一次撤稿会通过作者先前的作品引发引用量的损失。与匹配度高的对照论文相比，每篇先前发表的论文的引用量平均每年下降6.9%。这些连锁反应在作者（a）早至十年前发表的论文以及（b）在作者自己的引用网络中与撤稿论文的分离度高达4度的论文上持续存在。然而，重要的是，当作者自行报告错误时，先前作品的引用量损失就会消失。我们的分析和结果涵盖了各个科学学科。
