  The aim of this work is to understand the retraction phenomenon in the arts
and humanities domain through an analysis of the retraction notices: formal
documents stating and describing the retraction of a particular publication.
The retractions and the corresponding notices are identified using the data
provided by Retraction Watch. Our methodology for the analysis combines a
metadata analysis and a content analysis (mainly performed using a topic
modeling process) of the retraction notices. Considering 343 cases of
retraction, we found that many retraction notices are neither identifiable nor
findable. In addition, these were not always separated from the original
papers, introducing ambiguity in understanding how these notices were perceived
by the community (i.e., cited). Also, we noticed that there is no systematic
way to write a retraction notice. Indeed, some retraction notices presented a
complete discussion of the reasons for retraction, while others tended to be
more direct and succinct. We have also reported many notices having similar
text while addressing different retractions. We think a further study with a
larger collection should be done using the same methodology to confirm and
investigate our findings further.
