The degree to which retracted papers are present in the body of scientific knowledge, without being clearly and in a consistent manner marked as retracted and then it is cited by subsequent papers, is not only unacceptable but is also potentially dangerous. It represents a serious risk to patients/the community. This preprint paper dives deeper into the issue. We have included links to two related papers.
In this article, we show and discuss the results of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of citations to retracted publications in the humanities domain. Our study was conducted by selecting retracted papers in the humanities domain and marking their main characteristics (e.g., retraction reason). Then, we gathered the citing entities and annotated their basic metadata (e.g., title, venue, subject, etc.) and the characteristics of their in-text citations (e.g., intent, sentiment, etc.). Using these data, we performed a quantitative and qualitative study of retractions in the humanities, presenting descriptive statistics and a topic modeling analysis of the citing entities’ abstracts and the in-text citation contexts. As part of our main findings, we noticed a continuous increment in the overall number of citations after the retraction year, with few entities which have either mentioned the retraction or expressed a negative sentiment toward the cited entities. In addition, on several occasions we noticed a higher concern and awareness when it was about citing a retracted article, by the citing entities belonging to the health sciences domain, if compared to the humanities and the social sciences domains. Philosophy, arts, and history are the humanities areas that showed the higher concerns toward the retraction.
Heibi, I. & Peroni, S. (2021) A qualitative and quantitative analysis of open citations to retracted articles: the Wakefield 1998 et al.’s case. Scientometrics 126, 8433–8470 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-04097-5
Preprint Server: https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.05223

A quantitative and qualitative citation analysis of retracted articles in the humanities
In this article, we show and discuss the results of a quantitative and
qualitative analysis of citations to retracted publications in the humanities
domain. Our study was conducted by selecting retracted papers in the humanities
domain and marking their main characteristics (e.g., retraction reason)…
qualitative analysis of citations to retracted publications in the humanities
domain. Our study was conducted by selecting retracted papers in the humanities
domain and marking their main characteristics (e.g., retraction reason)…