Citation Fate of World Retracted Articles: The Comparative Study of Humanities, Medical Science, Engineering Science and Pure Science

In recent years, the rate of academic misconduct and consequently, the number of retracted articles in many countries has increased. Because the phenomenon of retraction often occurs in prestigious international journals and after the publication of paper, an article may retract many years later. In order to study retracted articles, the amount of post retraction citation is a most important subject in the scientific relationship and citation behavior of researchers in different areas. The purpose of present study is to compare the world's retracted articles with regard to the amount of prior to retraction citations and post retraction citations by fields and countries. This is an applied research and has been conducted using scientometric methods and descriptive-analytical approach. Statistical population is all retracted articles of world in the fields of humanities, medical sciences, engineering science and pure science which have been indexed by Clarivate Analytics database from 1970 to 2017. All articles reviewed in Microsoft Excel for the citation status. Findings: Research findings indicate that in all four areas, articles have also been cited after retraction. Except engineering field, which has received a high percentage of prior to retraction citations, other fields had a high percentage of post retraction citations. Among the countries with the most retracted articles in the Clarivate Analytics, all citations received by the United States, Iran and Sweden were post retraction citations. Application: In fact this study is a policy research related to citation behavior of researchers of different fields in the world and can play an important role in determining the scientific luck of articles after retraction in different scientific disciplines. Authenticity (originality) /value: In the field of scientific misconduct and retracted articles, there has been no research on the comparative study of the citation of these papers in various sciences.