Retraction notices ' the explanatory statements published alongside papers that have been withdrawn from the literature ' have become more clearly worded and easier to access in some cases, according to a study that looked at hundreds of these notices. The findings, published last month in Accountability in Research, show only modest progress over a ten-year period and are limited in scope1. But the work highlights the need for publishers to agree on more consistent guidelines and commit to greater transparency, the authors say. 'We rely on science and technology to make decisions,' says co-author Misha Angrist, a science-policy researcher at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. 'If some aspect of that turns out to be incorrect, whether because of nefarious behaviour or an innocent mistake, we would like for the retraction to be in the same size font and easily accessible and easily understandable.' Papers can be retracted by their authors or publishers for myriad reasons,...
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