IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jpubli/v11y2023i2p26-d1135280.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Evolution of Narrativity in Abstracts of the Biomedical Literature between 1989 and 2022

Author

Listed:
  • Stefano Guizzardi

    (Histology and Embryology Lab, Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma, Via Volturno 39, 43126 Parma, Italy)

  • Maria Teresa Colangelo

    (Histology and Embryology Lab, Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma, Via Volturno 39, 43126 Parma, Italy)

  • Prisco Mirandola

    (Histology and Embryology Lab, Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma, Via Volturno 39, 43126 Parma, Italy)

  • Carlo Galli

    (Histology and Embryology Lab, Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma, Via Volturno 39, 43126 Parma, Italy)

Abstract

Previous analysis has shown that the use of narrative devices in the biomedical literature has changed over time. The purpose of the present study was to measure the degree of narrativity in corpora of scientific abstracts obtained from Pubmed through the use of a proprietary software LIWC 2022, which, based on pre-set dictionaries, attributes scores for Staging, Plot Progression and Cognitive Tension to texts. Each text is automatically divided into a number of segments, so that the score change can be assessed throughout the different parts of a text, thus identifying its narrative arc. We systematically applied the scoring system to a corpus of 680,000 abstracts from manuscripts of any kind and genre published in the years 1989–2022 and indexed in MEDLINE, an independent corpus of 680,000 abstracts of Primary studies published in the same years, and finally a corpus of 680,000 abstracts of Review papers that appeared in the 1989–2022 interval. We were able to create plots of the pattern of how these three scores changed over time in each corpus and observed that the prototypical pattern observed in narrative texts, e.g., novels, is not seen in abstracts of the scientific literature, which, however, mostly possess a diverse but quite reproducible pattern. Overall, Reviews better conform to a higher degree of narrativity than Primary studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefano Guizzardi & Maria Teresa Colangelo & Prisco Mirandola & Carlo Galli, 2023. "The Evolution of Narrativity in Abstracts of the Biomedical Literature between 1989 and 2022," Publications, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-12, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jpubli:v:11:y:2023:i:2:p:26-:d:1135280
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/11/2/26/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/11/2/26/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carlo Galli & Stefano Guizzardi, 2020. "Change in Format, Register and Narration Style in the Biomedical Literature: A 1948 Example," Publications, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-15, February.
    2. Esther Landhuis, 2016. "Scientific literature: Information overload," Nature, Nature, vol. 535(7612), pages 457-458, July.
    3. Ann Hillier & Ryan P Kelly & Terrie Klinger, 2016. "Narrative Style Influences Citation Frequency in Climate Change Science," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(12), pages 1-12, December.
    4. Carlo Galli & Maria Teresa Colangelo & Stefano Guizzardi, 2020. "Striving for Modernity: Layout and Abstracts in the Biomedical Literature," Publications, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-14, July.
    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. Stefano Guizzardi & Maria Teresa Colangelo & Prisco Mirandola & Carlo Galli, 2024. "Tracing the Evolution of Reviews and Research Articles in the Biomedical Literature: A Multi-Dimensional Analysis of Abstracts," Publications, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-16, January.

    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. Carlo Galli & Maria Teresa Colangelo & Stefano Guizzardi, 2020. "Striving for Modernity: Layout and Abstracts in the Biomedical Literature," Publications, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-14, July.
    2. Manh-Toan Ho & Ngoc-Thang B. Le & Manh-Tung Ho & Quan-Hoang Vuong, 2022. "A bibliometric review on development economics research in Vietnam from 2008 to 2020," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 2939-2969, October.
    3. Rosalind Pidcock & Kate Heath & Lydia Messling & Susie Wang & Anna Pirani & Sarah Connors & Adam Corner & Christopher Shaw & Melissa Gomis, 2021. "Evaluating effective public engagement: local stories from a global network of IPCC scientists," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 168(3), pages 1-22, October.
    4. Andreas Rehs, 2020. "A structural topic model approach to scientific reorientation of economics and chemistry after German reunification," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 1229-1251, November.
    5. Yue Zhang & Weiyan Wang & Zhiyi Zhang, 2017. "Journals, Please go Further!," Global Journal of Reproductive Medicine, Juniper Publishers Inc., vol. 1(5), pages 104-105, July.
    6. Veronika Oravcová & Kateryna Yakovenko & Matúš Mišík, 2022. "Complete but Fragmented: Research on Energy in Central and Eastern Europe," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(17), pages 1-16, August.
    7. Ho, Manh-Toan, 2020. "The rise of research on development economics in Vietnam: Analyses and implications for the public and policymakers from SSHPA 2008-2020 dataset," Thesis Commons msy6e, Center for Open Science.
    8. Stefano Guizzardi & Maria Teresa Colangelo & Prisco Mirandola & Carlo Galli, 2024. "Tracing the Evolution of Reviews and Research Articles in the Biomedical Literature: A Multi-Dimensional Analysis of Abstracts," Publications, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-16, January.
    9. Rayanne Barros Setubal & Daniel Silva Farias & Clarice Casa Nova & Anna Carolina Fornero Aguiar & Tauany Aparecida Silva Santa Rosa Rodrigues & Rafael Teixeira Santos Lira & Anderson Luiz Vargas Ferre, 2022. "Microwave effect: analyzing citations from classic theories and their reinventions—a case study from a classic paper in aquatic ecology—Brooks & Dodson, 1965," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(8), pages 4751-4767, August.
    10. Yadav, Pratyush & Pervin, Nargis, 2022. "Towards efficient navigation in digital libraries: Leveraging popularity, semantics and communities to recommend scholarly articles," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4).
    11. Grażyna Wieczorkowska & Katarzyna Kowalczyk, 2021. "Ensuring Sustainable Evaluation: How to Improve Quality of Evaluating Grant Proposals?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-11, March.
    12. Besancenot, Damien & Vranceanu, Radu, 2024. "Reluctance to pursue breakthrough research: A signaling explanation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(4).
    13. , Aisdl, 2020. "The rise of research on development economics in Vietnam: Analyses and implications for the public and policymakers from SSHPA 2008-2020 dataset," OSF Preprints 9nbyr, Center for Open Science.
    14. Kai Li & Chenyue Jiao, 2022. "The data paper as a sociolinguistic epistemic object: A content analysis on the rhetorical moves used in data paper abstracts," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 73(6), pages 834-846, June.
    15. Stefano Mammola & Diego Fontaneto & Alejandro Martínez & Filipe Chichorro, 2021. "Impact of the reference list features on the number of citations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(1), pages 785-799, January.
    16. Carlo Galli & Stefano Guizzardi, 2020. "Change in Format, Register and Narration Style in the Biomedical Literature: A 1948 Example," Publications, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-15, February.

    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:gam:jpubli:v:11:y:2023:i:2:p:26-:d:1135280. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.