Citation Reuse After Article Reinstatement: Evidence from Three Restoration Events

Abstract The formal reversal of a retraction restores an article's publication status, but it is not known whether authors who previously cited that article reuse the citation in subsequent work. We followed prior-citing author units across three verified article-restoration events, using Crossref/Retraction Watch, publisher records, and OpenAlex. Of 27 locked author units, 15 cited at least one member of a prespecified, pre-retraction co-citation set during the interruption. Their first eligible post-restoration topical outputs yielded 12 author units with observable reference lists, represented by nine distinct publications; none re-cited the restored article (0/12 units). Three other author units, represented by two abstracts without observable reference lists, remained missing, giving a no-imputation bound of 0%–20% across all 15 selected units. Eight of the 12 observable units, represented by six distinct publications, cited at least one member of the same predefined set after restoration. No confirmed focal re-citation was observed within one or two years in the 27-unit cohort. By 1 October 2026, later indexed re-citation appeared for six author units (four publications), all in the GENOMICS event. These case-based results distinguish restoration of publication status from the timing and observability of subsequent citation reuse, without identifying functional substitution or causal effects.