IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0003057.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Random Drift versus Selection in Academic Vocabulary: An Evolutionary Analysis of Published Keywords

Author

Listed:
  • R Alexander Bentley

Abstract

The evolution of vocabulary in academic publishing is characterized via keyword frequencies recorded in the ISI Web of Science citations database. In four distinct case-studies, evolutionary analysis of keyword frequency change through time is compared to a model of random copying used as the null hypothesis, such that selection may be identified against it. The case studies from the physical sciences indicate greater selection in keyword choice than in the social sciences. Similar evolutionary analyses can be applied to a wide range of phenomena; wherever the popularity of multiple items through time has been recorded, as with web searches, or sales of popular music and books, for example.

Suggested Citation

  • R Alexander Bentley, 2008. "Random Drift versus Selection in Academic Vocabulary: An Evolutionary Analysis of Published Keywords," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 3(8), pages 1-7, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0003057
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0003057
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0003057
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0003057&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0003057?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael J Stringer & Marta Sales-Pardo & Luís A Nunes Amaral, 2008. "Effectiveness of Journal Ranking Schemes as a Tool for Locating Information," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 3(2), pages 1-8, February.
    2. Roland G. Fryer & Steven D. Levitt, 2004. "The Causes and Consequences of Distinctively Black Names," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(3), pages 767-805.
    3. Petter Minnhagen & Sebastian Bernhardsson, 2008. "The Blind Watchmaker Network: Scale-Freeness and Evolution," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 3(2), pages 1-5, February.
    4. Gergely Palla & Albert-László Barabási & Tamás Vicsek, 2007. "Quantifying social group evolution," Nature, Nature, vol. 446(7136), pages 664-667, April.
    5. Mikhail V. Simkin & Vwani P. Roychowdhury, 2007. "A mathematical theory of citing," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 58(11), pages 1661-1673, September.
    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. Alberto Acerbi & Stefano Ghirlanda & Magnus Enquist, 2012. "The Logic of Fashion Cycles," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(3), pages 1-9, 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. S. R. Goldberg & H. Anthony & T. S. Evans, 2015. "Modelling citation networks," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(3), pages 1577-1604, December.
    2. Yin, Yian & Wang, Dashun, 2017. "The time dimension of science: Connecting the past to the future," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 608-621.
    3. Johannes Buggle & Thierry Mayer & Seyhun Orcan Sakalli & Mathias Thoenig, 2023. "The Refugee’s Dilemma: Evidence from Jewish Migration out of Nazi Germany," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(2), pages 1273-1345.
    4. Chowdhury, Shyamal & Ooi, Evarn & Slonim, Robert, 2017. "Racial discrimination and white first name adoption: a field experiment in the Australian labour market," Working Papers 2017-15, University of Sydney, School of Economics.
    5. Mujcic, Redzo & Frijters, Paul, 2013. "Still Not Allowed on the Bus: It Matters If You're Black or White!," IZA Discussion Papers 7300, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Keith Head & Thierry Mayer, 2008. "Detection Of Local Interactions From The Spatial Pattern Of Names In France," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 67-95, February.
    7. Jan Hanousek & Štěpán Jurajda, 2018. "Názvy společností a jejich vliv na výkonnost firem [Corporate Names and Performance]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2018(6), pages 671-688.
    8. Collado, M. Dolores & Ortuño Ortin, Ignacio & Romeu, Andrés, 2008. "Vertical Transmission of Consumption Behavior and the Distribution of Surnames," UMUFAE Economics Working Papers 2651, DIGITUM. Universidad de Murcia.
    9. Button, Patrick & Walker, Brigham, 2020. "Employment discrimination against Indigenous Peoples in the United States: Evidence from a field experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    10. Kai On Wong & Osmar R Zaïane & Faith G Davis & Yutaka Yasui, 2020. "A machine learning approach to predict ethnicity using personal name and census location in Canada," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-16, November.
    11. Lisa Cook, 2014. "Violence and economic activity: evidence from African American patents, 1870–1940," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 221-257, June.
    12. Olivetti, Claudia & Paserman, M. Daniele & Salisbury, Laura, 2018. "Three-generation mobility in the United States, 1850–1940: The role of maternal and paternal grandparents," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 73-90.
    13. Nicolás Ajzenman & Bruno Ferman & Sant’Anna Pedro C., 2023. "Discrimination in the Formation of Academic Networks: A Field Experiment on #EconTwitter," Working Papers 235, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    14. Leonardo Bursztyn & Thomas Chaney & Tarek Alexander Hassan & Aakaash Rao, 2021. "The Immigrant Next Door: Long-Term Contact, Generosity, and Prejudice," NBER Working Papers 28448, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Yann Algan & Clément Malgouyres & Thierry Mayer & Mathias Thoenig, 2022. "The Economic Incentives of Cultural Transmission: Spatial Evidence from Naming Patterns Across France [‘Cultural assimilation during the age of mass migration’]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(642), pages 437-470.
    16. Samuel Bazzi & Arya Gaduh & Alexander D. Rothenberg & Maisy Wong, 2019. "Unity in Diversity? How Intergroup Contact Can Foster Nation Building," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(11), pages 3978-4025, November.
    17. Ran Abramitzky & Leah Platt Boustan & Dylan Connor, 2020. "Leaving the Enclave: Historical Evidence on Immigrant Mobility from the Industrial Removal Office," Working Papers 2020-35, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    18. Nicodemo, Catia & Raya, Josep M., 2018. "Does Juan Carlos or Nelson Obtain a Larger Price Cut in the Spanish Housing Market?," IZA Discussion Papers 11811, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Gabrielle Demange, 2012. "On the influence of a ranking system," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 39(2), pages 431-455, July.
    20. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro & Matt Taddy, 2019. "Measuring Group Differences in High‐Dimensional Choices: Method and Application to Congressional Speech," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(4), pages 1307-1340, July.

    More about this item

    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:plo:pone00:0003057. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.