Measuring the influence of non-scientific features on citations

Mammola, Stefano; Piano, Elena; Doretto, Alberto; Caprio, Enrico; Chamberlain, Dan

doi:10.1007/s11192-022-04421-7

Cited by 15 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…To explore the relationship between sampled biodiversity, use of descriptors, and impact of a given paper, we extracted two measures of article impact: i) the number of citations received by each paper on the Web of Science; and ii) the Altmetric score, a measure of the general attention that a scholarly article has received online. Furthermore, we selected three confounding factors that are well-known correlates of these measures of impact (47,(73)(74)(75): i) Journal Impact Factor at the year of publication, based on annual Journal Citation Reports by Clarivate Analytics; ii) the number of coauthors in a given paper; and iii) the diversity of countries represented in the author's list (i.e., the number of unique countries based on the author's affiliations).…”

Section: Scientometric Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

How much biodiversity is concealed in the word “biodiversity”?

Mammola¹,

Fukushima²,

Biondo³

et al. 2022

Preprint

Self Cite

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Amidst a global biodiversity crisis, the word “biodiversity” has become indispensable for practical conservation, including as a normative term. Yet, biodiversity is often used as a buzzword in scientific literature. Resonant titles promoting to have studied “global biodiversity” may then be used to oversell research that is narrow-focused on a limited sample of taxonomic groups, regions, or habitats. We selected a random sample of ~900 papers with the word “biodiversity” in their title to take a long view of the use and misuse of this term. We analyzed the degree to which studies actually consider different taxonomic groups and biodiversity facets and how all of this translates to the impact of a paper. As many as 22% of the articles used the term biodiversity in the title but did not measure it at any level. Among the articles sampling biodiversity directly, the proportion of biodiversity investigated was systematically low. We documented a decrease in the taxonomic scope of articles in recent years, especially those relying on big data. This is in stark contrast with the parallel advances in analytical tools, monitoring technologies, and the availability of data. Importantly, studies with general titles (i.e., using the word “biodiversity” without mentioning any taxa, habitat, or region) attract more citations and online attention (Altmetric), but only when they also have a wider taxonomic scope. Our results have broad ramifications for understanding how the extrapolation from studies with narrow taxonomic scope shapes our view of global biodiversity patterns and poorly informs conservation practices.

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Section: Scientometric Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Impact Factor and Number of countries of the co-authors were included as confounding factors. Specifically, by the design of the study, we assumed that articles with a greater number of coauthors and published in high-impact factor venues will, on average, achieve a greater impact (73)(74)(75).…”

Section: Author Contributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How much biodiversity is concealed in the word “biodiversity”?

Mammola¹,

Fukushima²,

Biondo³

et al. 2022

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Finally, Murphy et al (2019) found no significant effect of title humour on citation rate for ecology and entomology papers. Three other studies have examined related attributes of titles: Haslam et al (2008) found no effect on citation of "catchiness" (a title could be catchy because it was funny, or for many other reasons), Keating et al (2019) found a negative effect of title sarcasm, and Mammola et al (2022) found no effect of title "pleasantness". Together this work provides little evidence that humour helps, and yet funny titles (and the papers that bear them) are widely shared on social media and stick in memory.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

If this title is funny, will you cite me? Citation impacts of humour and other features of article titles in ecology and evolution

Heard

Cull

White

2023

FACETS

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Titles of scientific papers play a key role in their discovery, and “good” titles engage and recruit readers. Humour is a particularly interesting aspect of title construction, but little is known about whether funny titles boost or limit paper impact. We used a panel of scorers to assess title humour for 2439 papers in ecology and evolution, and measured associations between humour and subsequent citation (self-citation and citation by others). Papers with funnier titles were cited less, but this appears to reflect confounding with paper importance: self-citation data suggest that authors give funnier titles to papers they consider less important. After correction for this, papers with funny titles have significantly higher citation rates ( P < 2.2 × 10−16; roughly doubling from lowest to highest humour score)—suggesting that humour recruits readers. We also examined associations between citation rates and other features of titles. Inclusion of acronyms and taxonomic names was associated with lower citation rates, while assertive-statement phrasing and presence of colons, question marks, and political regions were associated with somewhat higher citation rates. Title length had no effect on citation. Our results suggest that scientists can use creativity with titles without having their work condemned to obscurity.

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“…Finally, Murphy et al (2019) found no significant effect of title humour on citation rate for ecology and entomology papers. Three other studies have examined related attributes of Heard, Cull & White -Citation impacts of funny paper titles 5 titles: Haslam et al (2008) found no effect on citation of "catchiness" (a title could be catchy because it was funny, or for many other reasons) Keating et al (2019) found a negative effect of title sarcasm, and Mammola et al (2022) found no effect of title "pleasantness"). Together this work provides little evidence that humour helps, and yet funny titles (and the papers that bear them) are widely shared on social media and stick in memory.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

If this title is funny, will you cite me? Citation impacts of humour and other features of article titles in ecology and evolution

Heard

Cull

White

2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Titles of scientific papers pay a key role in their discovery, and "good" titles engage and recruit readers. A particularly interesting aspect of title construction is the use of humour, but little is known about whether funny titles boost or limit readership and citation of papers. We used a panel of volunteer scorers to assess title humour for 2,439 papers in ecology and evolution, and measured associations between humour scores and subsequent citation (both self-citation and citation by others). Papers with funnier titles were cited less often, but this appears to result from a confound with paper importance. Self-citation data suggest that authors give funnier titles to papers they consider less important. After correction for this confound, papers with funny titles have significantly higher citation rates, suggesting that humour recruits readers. We also examined associations between citation rates and several other features of titles. Inclusion of acronyms and taxonomic names was associated with lower citation rates, while assertive-statement phrasing and presence of colons, question marks, and political regions were associated with somewhat higher citation rates. Title length had no effect on citation. Our results suggest that scientists can use creativity with titles without having their work condemned to obscurity.

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Measuring the influence of non-scientific features on citations

Cited by 15 publications

References 55 publications

How much biodiversity is concealed in the word “biodiversity”?

How much biodiversity is concealed in the word “biodiversity”?

If this title is funny, will you cite me? Citation impacts of humour and other features of article titles in ecology and evolution

If this title is funny, will you cite me? Citation impacts of humour and other features of article titles in ecology and evolution

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