Cover stories: An emerging aesthetic of prestige science

Wang, Guoyan; Gregory, Jane; Cheng, Xi; Yao, Ying

doi:10.1177/0963662517706607

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…The results presented so far provide clear evidence of a positive difference in citations between cover and non-cover Nature articles, consistent with the existing literature [20]. However, they do not allow us to distinguish between the causal effect of being featured on the cover, and a selection effect (more cited authors are more likely candidates for the Nature cover).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 80%

“…[20], who emphasize the aesthetic aspects of the cover, state that "Nature's cover images first appeared in 2001" -in fact, (colored) cover images were present during the entire period of time analyzed in the present study 2. We used the Scopus API at https://dev.elsevier.com 3.…”

mentioning

confidence: 64%

“…Equation (2) will be first estimated in the Nature sample, as in [20]. This restricted data set, however, does not provide a feasible set up for an RDD interpretation, given that, for Nature articles, we do not have citations prior to the publication date of the articles themselves.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our analysis focuses on the journal Nature, given its prestige in the scientific community and the existence of previous related studies that examine this journal. [20] show, based on total citation counts from the Web of Science database, that articles featured on the cover of Nature between 2008 and 2010 obtain on average more citations than articles published on Nature in the same period but not featured on the cover. However, the interpretation of this finding is far from obvious.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cover Effects on Citations Uncovered: Evidence from Nature

2019

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Despite the prominent role played by bibliometric indicators for evaluating research, progress in pinning down the determinants of citation flows has so far been hindered by endogeneity issues. Based on 30 years of bibliometric data, we exploit a Regression Discontinuity Design to causally identify the effects that an article featured on the cover of the journal Nature has on citations to all articles by its authors. We confirm that, over time, cover articles are cited significantly more than non-cover articles, with this difference being long-lasting. However, when considering all articles by Nature authors, we find evidence of a crowding-out effect: the publication of a cover article causes citations to previous articles by its authors to decline sharply relative to citations to articles by non-cover authors.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 80%

mentioning

confidence: 64%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cover Effects on Citations Uncovered: Evidence from Nature

2019

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“…Dating back to the 1970s when computer-generated graphics began, 4 papers represented by an image on the journal cover have been cited more frequently than papers without a cover image. 5 There are numerous advantages to quickly and effectively conveying scientific information; however, scientists often lack the design principles or technical skills to generate effective visuals. Going back several decades, Cleveland 6 found that 30% of graphs in the journal Science had at least one type of error.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Principles of Effective Data Visualization

Midway

2020

Patterns

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Summary We live in a contemporary society surrounded by visuals, which, along with software options and electronic distribution, has created an increased importance on effective scientific visuals. Unfortunately, across scientific disciplines, many figures incorrectly present information or, when not incorrect, still use suboptimal data visualization practices. Presented here are ten principles that serve as guidance for authors who seek to improve their visual message. Some principles are less technical, such as determining the message before starting the visual, while other principles are more technical, such as how different color combinations imply different information. Because figure making is often not formally taught and figure standards are not readily enforced in science, it is incumbent upon scientists to be aware of best practices in order to most effectively tell the story of their data.

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