Avloryn PublicationsCorrections, retractions and expressions of concern
The published version of record is permanent. It is never quietly edited and never deleted. Where something is wrong, we publish a linked notice.
- Correction — an error that affects the record but not the conclusions.
- Retraction — findings are unreliable, whether through honest error or misconduct; or the work is
plagiarised, redundantly published, or unethical. The article stays online, clearly marked, with the notice linked. Removing it would break the citation record and hide the fact that it existed.
- Expression of concern — a serious question exists that we cannot yet resolve, typically while an
institution investigates.
Withdrawal before publication. An author may withdraw a submission at any point before acceptance, by writing to the handling editor, and there is no charge for doing so — not now, and not if fees are introduced later. After acceptance, withdrawal is possible only where there is a substantive reason, because reviewers and editors have by then done the work; the Editor-in-Chief decides, and there is still no charge.
Some publishers levy a withdrawal fee. We do not. A charge for changing your mind punishes the honest author who found an error in their own paper — which is the opposite of what we want to encourage.
Who decides. The Editor-in-Chief decides between a correction, an expression of concern and a retraction, on the handling editor's recommendation. Where the Editor-in-Chief is an author on the paper or otherwise conflicted, an associate editor with no involvement decides instead.
Anyone may raise a concern. We follow COPE's flowcharts, tell the authors, and give them an opportunity to respond before publishing any notice.
A notice is a document, not a banner. Every correction, retraction and expression of concern is published as its own citable item with its own DOI, linked to the article in both directions. The article's own DOI never changes, and its text is never edited in place.
Crossref calls the alternative an in-situ update — quietly changing a published article without issuing a separate notice — and advises against it because it obscures the scholarly record. Someone holding a copy downloaded last year would have no way to know it had changed. A separately published, separately citable notice is the only version of "we corrected it" that a reader can still check years afterwards.