Are the abstracts of high impact articles more readable? Investigating the evidence from top research institutions in the world

Gazni, Ali

doi:10.1177/0165551511401658

Cited by 59 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…However, previous research confirmed a negative correlation between the abstract readability and citation impact of publications in the top institutions of the world (Gazni, 2011). There are numerous readability measures available but each of them has its own limitations (Gazni, 2011). To prevent the limitations of a single measure to negatively affect the results of the current study, a range of readability formulae was chosen to examine their associations with citation counts.…”

Section: Abstract Readabilitymentioning

confidence: 86%

“…The Spearman correlation between this variable and citation counts is close to zero in the three fields, although it is a negative correlation coefficient in Biology & Biochemistry and Chemistry but positive in Social Sciences. However, previous research confirmed a negative correlation between the abstract readability and citation impact of publications in the top institutions of the world (Gazni, 2011). There are numerous readability measures available but each of them has its own limitations (Gazni, 2011).…”

Section: Abstract Readabilitymentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The readers of scientific papers are experts in their own fields and have prior knowledge and interest in them; second, they fail to consider the characteristics of the text affecting text comprehension such as content familiarity, text structure, and author style (Armbruster, Osborn, & Davison, 1985). Hence an abstract graded as difficult based on its Flesch score may not be difficult for the scholars of the field (Gazni, 2011). On the other hand, scholars may scan the abstracts for keywords to find if a paper is relevant rather than reading the entire abstract.…”

Section: Abstract Readabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These factors are at least to some extent under the control of the authors and so it would be useful to know whether researchers should pay attention to them to ensure that their research has the greatest possible impact. Research collaboration has been frequently analysed (Sooryamoorthy, 2009) and the other factors have also been examined (Zhao, 2010;Gazni, 2011) but they have not been examined simultaneously for multiple research fields using an optimal statistical model. This is an important omission because non-simultaneous tests may identify apparently important factors that have no effect when other factors are controlled.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Readability refers to the level of difficulty of the language used to write a text. Using the Flesch difficulty score, Gazni (2011) found that papers with less readable abstracts were cited more than the papers with more readable abstracts in the five top institutions in the world. It…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Which factors help authors produce the highest impact research? Collaboration, journal and document properties

Didegah

Thelwall

2013

Journal of Informetrics

261

172

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This study assesses whether eleven factors associate with higher impact research: individual, institutional and international collaboration; journal and reference impacts; abstract readability; reference and keyword totals; paper, abstract and title lengths. Authors may have some control over these factors and hence this information may help them to conduct and publish higher impact research. These factors have been previously researched but with partially conflicting findings. A simultaneous assessment of these eleven factors for Biology & Biochemistry, Chemistry and Social Sciences used a single negative binomial-logit hurdle model estimating the percentage change in the mean citation counts per unit of increase or decrease in the predictor variables. The journal Impact Factor was found to significantly associate with increased citations in all three areas. The impact and the number of cited references and their average citation impact also significantly associate with higher article citation impact. Individual and international teamwork give a citation advantage in Biology & Biochemistry and Chemistry but inter-institutional teamwork is not important in any of the three subject areas. Abstract readability is also not significant or of no practical significance. Among the article size features, abstract length significantly associates with increased citations but the number of keywords, title length and paper length are insignificant or of no practical significance. In summary, at least some aspects of collaboration, journal and document properties significantly associate with higher citations. The results provide new and particularly strong statistical evidence that the authors should consider publishing in high impact journals, ensure that they do not omit relevant references, engage in the widest possible team working, when appropriate, and write extensive abstracts. A new finding is that whilst is seems to be useful to collaborate and to collaborate internationally, there seems to be no particular need to collaborate with other institutions within the same country. IntroductionDuring an academic career, scholars make numerous choices about the type of research to conduct, how to present their research, and where to submit it for publication. It seems logical that researchers should aim to conduct the highest possible impact research in order to make the most of their talents and opportunities. Whilst the key decisions for this aim are likely to be specific to the topics researched, there are some more peripheral factors that are nevertheless relevant and that academics may also need to consider in order to maximise the impact of their efforts.Citation counts are widely acknowledged as the main scientific research impact indicator and empirical studies have been carried out to seek associations between citation counts and various objective and easily measurable properties of research. These include the impact of the publishing journal (Boyack & Klavans, 2005), collaboration (Gazni & Didegah, 2010)...

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Section: Abstract Readabilitymentioning

confidence: 86%

Section: Abstract Readabilitymentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Abstract Readabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Which factors help authors produce the highest impact research? Collaboration, journal and document properties

Didegah

Thelwall

2013

Journal of Informetrics

261

172

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Author practices in citing other authors, institutions, and journals

Gazni

Ghaseminik

2015

Asso for Info Science & Tech

Self Cite

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This study explores the extent to which authors with different impact and productivity levels cite journals, institutions, and other authors through an analysis of the scientific papers of 37,717 authors during 1990-2013. The results demonstrate that the core-scatter distribution of cited authors, institutions, and journals varies for authors in each impact and productivity class. All authors in the science network receive the majority of their credit from high-impact authors; however, this effect decreases as authors' impact levels decrease. Similarly, the proportion of citations that lower-impact authors make to each other increases as authors' impact levels decrease. High-impact authors, who have the highest degree of membership in the science network, publish fewer papers in comparison to highly productive authors. However, authors with the highest impact make both more references per paper and also more citations to papers in the science network. This suggests that high-impact authors produce the most relevant work in the science network. Comparing practices by productivity level, authors receive the majority of their credit from highly productive authors and authors cite highly productive authors more frequently than less productive authors.

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Factors associating with or predicting more cited or higher quality journal articles: An Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST) paper

Kousha

Thelwall

2023

Asso for Info Science & Tech

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Identifying factors that associate with more cited or higher quality research may be useful to improve science or to support research evaluation. This article reviews evidence for the existence of such factors in article text and metadata. It also reviews studies attempting to estimate article quality or predict long‐term citation counts using statistical regression or machine learning for journal articles or conference papers. Although the primary focus is on document‐level evidence, the related task of estimating the average quality scores of entire departments from bibliometric information is also considered. The review lists a huge range of factors that associate with higher quality or more cited research in some contexts (fields, years, journals) but the strength and direction of association often depends on the set of papers examined, with little systematic pattern and rarely any cause‐and‐effect evidence. The strongest patterns found include the near universal usefulness of journal citation rates, author numbers, reference properties, and international collaboration in predicting (or associating with) higher citation counts, and the greater usefulness of citation‐related information for predicting article quality in the medical, health and physical sciences than in engineering, social sciences, arts, and humanities.

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Are the abstracts of high impact articles more readable? Investigating the evidence from top research institutions in the world

Cited by 59 publications

References 25 publications

Which factors help authors produce the highest impact research? Collaboration, journal and document properties

Which factors help authors produce the highest impact research? Collaboration, journal and document properties

Author practices in citing other authors, institutions, and journals

Factors associating with or predicting more cited or higher quality journal articles: An Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST) paper

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