What to communicate in retraction notices?

Key points Retraction notices are widely criticized for pervasive opacity and uninformativeness. Retraction notices as a high‐stakes academic genre serve three communicative purposes, namely correcting the literature, deterring potential offence, and repairing the tarnished image. A comprehensive content inventory of retraction notices is developed, drawing on de jure and de facto retraction notice contents. Five criteria for disclosing information in retraction notices are proposed. Retraction notices following the content inventory and the disclosure criteria can maximize their transparency.