PLOS Retracts an Honest Error Exactly Like It Retracts Misconduct, Because It Will Not Rule on Intent

PLOS structures its policy around a clear hierarchy: corrections for sound-but-imperfect articles, Expressions of Concern for unresolved questions, retractions for articles that can no longer be relied upon — and a stated refusal to let the reason for failure change which of those applies.

Corrections. Issued only when all three criteria are met: the errors “impact the main contents or understanding of the article”, the overall results and conclusions still hold, and there are no integrity or reliability concerns. Typos and minor issues are not corrected formally; authors are directed to post comments on the article page instead. PLOS may also correct key metadata — author names, competing-interest, funding or data-availability statements — under the same mechanism.

Expressions of Concern. Published at editors’ discretion to flag serious concerns to readers. PLOS usually completes its follow-up first, but may publish an interim EOC while an investigation is still running. An EOC does not change the article’s publication status; it may later be followed by a correction, a retraction, or be corrected or retracted itself. PLOS tries to notify authors beforehand but does not require their approval to publish one.

Retractions. Issued where unresolved integrity, validity or reliability concerns warrant it, under COPE guidance; where an article fails to meet key journal requirements after publication; or where image or data concerns cannot be resolved because the raw data are missing or insufficient. “PLOS does not adjudicate on intent or individual-level responsibility for issues raised” — the same retraction mechanism applies whether the underlying cause was an honest mistake or deliberate misconduct, and PLOS does not issue partial retractions. A retracted article stays online with its status clearly marked and the PDF updated, except in rare cases where keeping it available poses a substantial risk.

Refusing to rule on intent is a deliberate narrowing of what the retraction notice claims: it says the findings can no longer be relied upon, and nothing about why. That keeps PLOS out of the business of adjudicating misconduct findings it is not equipped to investigate like a research-integrity office can, while still protecting the scholarly record from an article that does not hold up, whatever the cause.

The no-partial-retraction rule follows the same logic from a different angle: a retraction that kept the sound parts of a paper while removing the unsound ones would require PLOS to make exactly the kind of fine-grained judgement about which findings survive that it has already said it will not make about intent.

Keeping a retracted article online, clearly marked, rather than removing it, serves the same transparency goal as Elsevier’s watermarked PDF and Wiley’s indexable notices: a reader who finds the article anywhere — a citation, a search result, an old bookmark — sees the retraction immediately rather than a dead link that explains nothing.

How it reaches a specific journal. Each PLOS journal publishes its own corrections-expressions-of-concern-and-retractions page using the same structure as the one read for this brief; the underlying criteria are shared across the portfolio.

For a case serious enough to need the Ethics team, the practical expectation to set is time: the policy describes PLOS usually completing follow-up before acting, with an interim Expression of Concern as the tool for the waiting period rather than a fast resolution.