We received a manuscript for consideration for publication in one of our journals (Journal A). During the peer review process we became aware that the manuscript had already been published in another journal (Journal B). When we asked the authors about this they said that they had asked the other journal to withdraw their manuscript before publication but this had not been done. We rejected the manuscript and advised the authors that no other journal would be able to publish their manuscript.
A few weeks later the authors resubmitted the same manuscript to Journal A as a new submission. In their cover letter they said that their paper in Journal B had been withdrawn. However, a check of Journal B’s website shows that both the abstract and the article PDF have been replaced with a PDF of a letter from the authors requesting that their paper be withdrawn. The letter is signed by the authors and is not dated. The reason the authors give in the letter for wanting to withdraw are vague, stating simply that they feel they have more they need to add to their work.
As Journal B has not published a formal retraction notice (and no retraction notice appears in any indexing services), we feel that we have no option but to reject this manuscript again from Journal A. We also have concerns that there may be copies of the Journal B version of the article in repositories or downloaded and saved by readers.
Questions for COPE Council
- Would COPE agree that this is the best course of action?
- Given that the authors’ paper has been taken down from Journal B’s website, is Journal A now denying the authors a venue in which to publish their work?
- Have COPE seen any other examples of journals/publishers refusing authors’ requests to withdraw articles before publication?
Advice on this case is from a small number of COPE Council Members. Most cases on the COPE website are presented to the COPE Forum where advice is offered by a wider group of COPE Members and COPE Council Members. Advice on individual cases is not formal COPE guidance.
There have been a number of cases brought to COPE where a paper has been submitted to a journal, only for there to be regrets post publication. COPE's attitude in these cases is that publication is publication, and retraction is only warranted if a major flaw in the paper has been discovered or, for example, misconduct that brings the paper into question.
COPE has also seen cases where manuscripts have been withdrawn prior to acceptance, only for the withdrawal to be ignored by the journal, complicating submission to a second journal. COPE's attitude in such cases is that withdrawal of a manuscript up to the point of formal acceptance should be accepted, but would need to be confirmed by the second journal.
In this case, it does sound like the authors changed their minds about the journal they wanted to publish in (or perhaps were under pressure to try a higher impact journal from their institution). While authors may have the right, legally, to withdraw a paper, prior to publication, this may be justified only when very sound reasons are provided for this request (eg, newly discovered errors in the data) but not frivolous ones, as given by the authors to journal B. As it seems that identical versions were submitted to journals A and B, the reasons given for withdrawal from journal B do not stand up to scrutiny.
Hence, journal A should not consider the paper and the authors need to be informed very clearly as to the reasons.
The fact the paper may exist elsewhere in repositories is not relevant as that applies to any retracted paper and little can be done about those versions.