# /retractionwatch/notices/search

`POST /api/retractionwatch/notices/search`

Price: 10 credits

Search the Retraction Watch database of retraction, correction, expression-of-concern and reinstatement notices by title, author, journal, publisher, institution, country, subject, reason, article type, identifier or date range

## How to use it

Search here when you want the stated reason a paper was retracted, or a cohort of notices — Crossref carries whether and when, this carries why. The source serves at most 50 records per query and there is no way to ask it for the ones after those, and those 50 are the most recent notices rather than a sample, so a full 50 rows means older matches you cannot reach: narrow with a second criterion (`journal`, `publisher`, `country`, `reason`) rather than with date ranges alone, since one notice date can hold several hundred records. Rows come back newest notice first, with a paper's earlier notices directly below its newest one. Text fields are substring matches and accept AND / OR between terms. `nature` separates a real retraction from a correction, an expression of concern or a reinstatement — filter on it rather than assuming, and reinstatements exist only here, never in Crossref.

## Parameters

- `access-token` (string, required)

## Request body

- `timeout` (integer) — Max scrapping execution timeout (in seconds) (default: 300; min: 20; max: 1500)
- `paper_title` (string, nullable) — Words in the retracted paper title (minLength: 1)
- `author` (string, nullable) — Author name of the retracted paper (minLength: 1)
- `journal` (string, nullable) — Journal the retracted paper appeared in (minLength: 1)
- `publisher` (string, nullable) — Publisher of the journal (minLength: 1)
- `institution` (string, nullable) — Author affiliation named on the paper (minLength: 1)
- `country` (string, nullable) — Country of an author affiliation (minLength: 1)
- `subject` (string, nullable) — Subject area, as Retraction Watch labels it (minLength: 1)
- `reason` (string, nullable) — Reason given for the notice, e.g. Plagiarism (minLength: 1)
- `article_type` (string, nullable) — Article type, e.g. Review Article (minLength: 1)
- `notes` (string, nullable) — Words in the free-text note on the record (minLength: 1)
- `url` (string, nullable) — Words in a URL linked from the record (minLength: 1)
- `curator_notes` (string, nullable) — Words in the curators' internal note on the record; the note itself is not returned (minLength: 1)
- `nature` (string, nullable) — Kind of notice (one of: "Retraction", "Expression of concern", "Correction", "Reinstatement")
- `paywalled` (string, nullable) — Whether the notice itself is behind a paywall (one of: "yes", "no", "unknown")
- `original_paper_doi` (string, nullable) — DOI of the retracted paper (minLength: 1)
- `original_paper_pubmed_id` (string, nullable) — PubMed ID of the retracted paper (minLength: 1)
- `retraction_doi` (string, nullable) — DOI of the notice (minLength: 1)
- `retraction_pubmed_id` (string, nullable) — PubMed ID of the notice (minLength: 1)
- `original_paper_date_from` (string, nullable) — Earliest publication date of the retracted paper (YYYY-MM-DD)
- `original_paper_date_to` (string, nullable) — Latest publication date of the retracted paper (YYYY-MM-DD)
- `retraction_date_from` (string, nullable) — Earliest notice date (YYYY-MM-DD)
- `retraction_date_to` (string, nullable) — Latest notice date (YYYY-MM-DD)
- `record_created_from` (string, nullable) — Earliest date the record entered the database (YYYY-MM-DD)
- `record_created_to` (string, nullable) — Latest date the record entered the database (YYYY-MM-DD)
- `count` (integer, required) — Number of notices to return (min: 1; max: 50)

## Response

### 200 — Successful Response

- `@type` (string) (default: "RetractionwatchNotice")
- `record_id` (string, required)
- `subjects` (array) (default: [])
- `journal` (string, nullable)
- `publisher` (string, nullable)
- `institutions` (array) (default: [])
- `authors` (array) (default: [])
- `countries` (array) (default: [])
- `article_types` (array) (default: [])
- `nature` (string, nullable)
- `reasons` (array) (default: [])
- `original_paper_date` (string, nullable)
- `original_paper_doi` (string, nullable)
- `original_paper_pubmed_id` (string, nullable)
- `retraction_date` (string, nullable)
- `retraction_doi` (string, nullable)
- `retraction_pubmed_id` (string, nullable)
- `is_paywalled` (boolean, nullable)
- `notes` (string, nullable)
- `urls` (array) (default: [])

## Errors

### 422 — Validation Error

The request body did not validate

What to do: Check the fields against this schema. A URN with the wrong prefix is the most common cause.

- `detail` (array)
  - `loc` (array, required)
  - `msg` (string, required)
  - `type` (string, required)
  - `input` (any)
  - `ctx` (object)

### 408

The request ran past its time limit

What to do: Raise `timeout` in the request body, up to the maximum this endpoint documents. Lowering `count` or turning off the `with_*` flags also helps, because less work finishes sooner.

### 412

The entity was not found, or a precondition failed

What to do: Retrying will not help: either the entity does not exist, or the input points at a different one.

### 429

Too many requests: a rate limit or a usage window is exhausted

What to do: When the response carries an X-Retry-After header, wait that many seconds and retry: the same number is in the body as `detail.retry_after`, and the limit clears once that window passes. The message in the body names the limit that was hit.

### 500

Something broke on our side

What to do: Retrying will not help. If it keeps happening, send us the X-Request-ID from the response headers.

### 529

Rate limit reached, or the endpoint is overloaded

What to do: Wait at least 30 seconds, then retry.

## Response envelope

Success: Array of objects (may be empty if no results)

Error: Error may coexist with partial results if it occurs mid-execution. Check X-Error header and status code.

Every response carries these headers:

- `X-Error` — Error message text (present only on error)
- `X-Request-ID` — Unique request identifier
- `X-Execution-Time` — Execution time in seconds
- `X-Result-Count` — How many records the body carries. 0 means an empty result, which is a normal answer and not by itself an error. A non-zero count can come back together with X-Error when the failure happened partway through — read this header and X-Error independently.
- `X-Total-Available-Results` — How many records exist for this query, when the endpoint can say. On a `dry_run` request this is the answer and the body is empty. It saturates: the endpoint's documented maximum means 'at least that many', any smaller number is exact.
- `X-Warning` — Present when the request body carried keys this endpoint does not document. They were ignored, so any filter you meant to apply through them did not apply. Check the spelling against this schema and retry.
- `X-Retry-After` — Seconds to wait before retrying. Present only on 429.