Hosseini Mohammad, Eve Martin Paul, Gordijn Bert, Neylon Cameron
Institute of Ethics, School of Theology, Philosophy, and Music, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland.
Department of English and Humanities, Birkbeck University of London, London, UK.
Res Integr Peer Rev. 2020 Sep 17;5:13. doi: 10.1186/s41073-020-00099-8. eCollection 2020.
Inaccurate citations are erroneous quotations or instances of paraphrasing of previously published material that mislead readers about the claims of the cited source. They are often unaddressed due to underreporting, the inability of peer reviewers and editors to detect them, and editors' reluctance to publish corrections about them. In this paper, we propose a new tool that could be used to tackle their circulation.
We provide a review of available data about inaccurate citations and analytically explore current ways of reporting and dealing with these inaccuracies. Consequently, we make a distinction between publication (i.e., first occurrence) and circulation (i.e., reuse) of inaccurate citations. Sloppy reading of published items, literature ambiguity and insufficient quality control in the editorial process are identified as factors that contribute to the publication of inaccurate citations. However, reiteration or copy-pasting without checking the validity of citations, paralleled with lack of resources/motivation to report/correct inaccurate citations contribute to their circulation.
We propose the development of an online annotation tool called "MyCites" as means with which to mark and map inaccurate citations. This tool allows ORCID users to annotate citations and alert authors (of the cited and citing articles) and also editors of journals where inaccurate citations are published. Each marked citation would travel with the digital version of the document (persistent identifiers) and be visible on websites that host peer-reviewed articles (journals' websites, Pubmed, etc.). In the future development of MyCites, challenges such as the conditions of correct/incorrect-ness and parties that should adjudicate that, and, the issue of dealing with incorrect reports need to be addressed.
不准确的引用是对先前发表材料的错误引用或改写实例，会误导读者关于被引用来源的主张。由于报告不足、同行评审人员和编辑无法发现这些问题，以及编辑不愿发表相关更正，这些问题往往得不到解决。在本文中，我们提出了一种可用于应对其传播的新工具。
我们回顾了有关不准确引用的现有数据，并分析探讨了报告和处理这些不准确之处的当前方法。因此，我们区分了不准确引用的发表（即首次出现）和传播（即再利用）。对已发表文章的草率阅读、文献的模糊性以及编辑过程中质量控制不足被确定为导致不准确引用发表的因素。然而，在未检查引用有效性的情况下进行重复或复制粘贴，再加上缺乏报告/纠正不准确引用的资源/动力，导致了它们的传播。
我们提议开发一种名为“MyCites”的在线注释工具，作为标记和映射不准确引用的手段。该工具允许ORCID用户注释引用，并提醒（被引用文章和引用文章的）作者以及发表不准确引用的期刊编辑。每个标记的引用将与文档的数字版本（持久标识符）一起传播，并在托管同行评审文章的网站（期刊网站、PubMed等）上可见。在MyCites的未来开发中，需要解决诸如正确/错误的条件以及应由谁来裁决等挑战，以及处理错误报告的问题。
