IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v173y2018icp100-103.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Easy to read, easy to cite?

Author

Listed:
  • Dowling, Michael
  • Hammami, Helmi
  • Zreik, Ousayna

Abstract

Ease of readability of Economics Letters abstracts, and number of works cited in an article, is positively related to future citations. Readability appears to particularly matter for mathematical and quantitative methods and macroeconomics papers, while number of works cited is generally important across all articles.

Suggested Citation

  • Dowling, Michael & Hammami, Helmi & Zreik, Ousayna, 2018. "Easy to read, easy to cite?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 100-103.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:173:y:2018:i:c:p:100-103
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2018.09.023
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176518304002
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2018.09.023?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diamond, Arthur M, Jr & Levy, David M, 1994. "The Metrics of Style: Adam Smith Teaches Efficient Rhetoric," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 32(1), pages 138-145, January.
    2. Laband, David N & Taylor, Christopher N, 1992. "The Impact of Bad Writing in Economics," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 30(4), pages 673-688, October.
    3. James Hartley & James W. Pennebaker & Claire Fox, 2003. "Abstracts, introductions and discussions: How far do they differ in style?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 57(3), pages 389-398, July.
    4. Hengel, E., 2017. "Publishing while Female. Are women held to higher standards? Evidence from peer review," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1753, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    5. Jansen, David-Jan, 2011. "Mumbling with great incoherence: Was it really so difficult to understand Alan Greenspan?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 70-72, October.
    6. Dolnicar, Sara & Chapple, Alexander, 2015. "The readability of articles in tourism journals," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 161-166.
    7. David Card & Stefano DellaVigna, 2017. "What do Editors Maximize? Evidence from Four Leading Economics Journals," NBER Working Papers 23282, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Lei Lei & Sheng Yan, 2016. "Readability and citations in information science: evidence from abstracts and articles of four journals (2003–2012)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 108(3), pages 1155-1169, September.
    9. High, Jack C, 1987. "The Costs of Economical Writing," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 25(3), pages 543-545, July.
    10. J. Scott Armstrong, 1980. "Unintelligible Management Research and Academic Prestige," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 10(2), pages 80-86, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. McCannon, Bryan C., 2019. "Readability and research impact," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 76-79.
    2. Burke, Matt & Fry, John, 2019. "How easy is it to understand consumer finance?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 1-4.
    3. Shan Wang & Xiaojun Liu & Jie Zhou, 2022. "Readability is decreasing in language and linguistics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(8), pages 4697-4729, August.
    4. Rose, Michael E. & Opolot, Daniel C. & Georg, Co-Pierre, 2022. "Discussants," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(10).
    5. Ju Wen & Lei Lei, 2022. "Adjectives and adverbs in life sciences across 50 years: implications for emotions and readability in academic texts," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(8), pages 4731-4749, August.
    6. Xi Zhao & Li Li & Wei Xiao, 2023. "The diachronic change of research article abstract difficulty across disciplines: a cognitive information-theoretic approach," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-12, December.
    7. Ante, Lennart, 2022. "The relationship between readability and scientific impact: Evidence from emerging technology discourses," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1).
    8. Feld, Jan & Lines, Corinna & Ross, Libby, 2024. "Writing matters," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 378-397.
    9. Diego Marino Fages, 2020. "Write better, publish better," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(3), pages 1671-1681, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ante, Lennart, 2022. "The relationship between readability and scientific impact: Evidence from emerging technology discourses," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1).
    2. Ju Wen & Lei Lei, 2022. "Adjectives and adverbs in life sciences across 50 years: implications for emotions and readability in academic texts," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(8), pages 4731-4749, August.
    3. Shan Wang & Xiaojun Liu & Jie Zhou, 2022. "Readability is decreasing in language and linguistics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(8), pages 4697-4729, August.
    4. Xi Zhao & Li Li & Wei Xiao, 2023. "The diachronic change of research article abstract difficulty across disciplines: a cognitive information-theoretic approach," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-12, December.
    5. Song, Ningyuan & Chen, Kejun & Zhao, Yuehua, 2023. "Understanding writing styles of scientific papers in the IS-LS domain: Evidence from abstracts over the past three decades," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    6. Omar Mubin & Dhaval Tejlavwala & Mudassar Arsalan & Muneeb Ahmad & Simeon Simoff, 2018. "An assessment into the characteristics of award winning papers at CHI," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(2), pages 1181-1201, August.
    7. Don Watson & Manfred Krug & Claus-Christian Carbon, 2022. "The relationship between citations and the linguistic traits of specific academic discourse communities identified by using social network analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(4), pages 1755-1781, April.
    8. Erin Hengel & Eunyoung Moon, 2020. "Gender and quality at top economics journals," Working Papers 202001, University of Liverpool, Department of Economics.
    9. Feld, Jan & Lines, Corinna & Ross, Libby, 2024. "Writing matters," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 378-397.
    10. Carlos Liard-Muriente & Christina Robinson, 2015. "The Write Experience in Economics: A Case Study from Central Connecticut State University," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 21(4), pages 453-465, November.
    11. Chan, C.S. Richard & Park, Haemin Dennis & Huang, Julie Y. & Parhankangas, Annaleena, 2020. "Less is more? Evidence for a curvilinear relationship between readability and screening evaluations across pitch competition and crowdfunding contexts," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 14(C).
    12. Berninger, Marc & Kiesel, Florian & Schiereck, Dirk & Gaar, Eduard, 2021. "Citations and the readers’ information-extracting costs of finance articles," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    13. Dolnicar, Sara & Chapple, Alexander, 2015. "The readability of articles in tourism journals," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 161-166.
    14. David-Jan Jansen, 2008. "Has the Clarity of Humphrey-Hawkins Testimonies Affected Volatility in Financial Markets?," DNB Working Papers 185, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    15. Diego Marino Fages, 2020. "Write better, publish better," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(3), pages 1671-1681, March.
    16. Lei Lei & Sheng Yan, 2016. "Readability and citations in information science: evidence from abstracts and articles of four journals (2003–2012)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 108(3), pages 1155-1169, September.
    17. Tan Jin & Huiqiong Duan & Xiaofei Lu & Jing Ni & Kai Guo, 2021. "Do research articles with more readable abstracts receive higher online attention? Evidence from Science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(10), pages 8471-8490, October.
    18. Alejandro Avenburg & John Gerring & Jason Seawright, 2023. "How do social scientists reach causal inferences? A study of reception," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 257-275, February.
    19. Julian Kolev & Yuly Fuentes-Medel & Fiona Murray, 2019. "Is Blinded Review Enough? How Gendered Outcomes Arise Even Under Anonymous Evaluation," NBER Working Papers 25759, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. G. C. Montes & L. V. Oliveira & A. Curi & R. T. F. Nicolay, 2016. "Effects of transparency, monetary policy signalling and clarity of central bank communication on disagreement about inflation expectations," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(7), pages 590-607, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Readability; Research impact; Bibliometrics; Economics letters;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A1 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics
    • B4 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:173:y:2018:i:c:p:100-103. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.