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An academic odyssey: writing over time

Author

Listed:
  • James Hartley

    (Keele University)

  • Guillaume Cabanac

    (University of Toulouse)

Abstract

In this paper we present and discuss the results of six enquiries into the first author’s academic writing over the last 50 years. Our aim is to assess whether or not his academic writing style has changed with age, experience, and cognitive decline. The results of these studies suggest that the readability of textbook chapters written by Hartley has remained fairly stable for over 50 years, with the later chapters becoming easier to read. The format of the titles used for chapters and papers has also remained much the same, with an increase in the use of titles written in the form of questions. It also appears that the format of the chosen titles had no effect on citation rates, but that papers that obtained the highest citation rates were written with colleagues rather by Hartley alone. Finally it is observed that Hartley’s publication rate has remained much the same for over 50 years but that this has been achieved at the expense of other academic activities.

Suggested Citation

  • James Hartley & Guillaume Cabanac, 2015. "An academic odyssey: writing over time," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(3), pages 1073-1082, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:103:y:2015:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-015-1562-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-015-1562-1
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Grant Lewison & James Hartley, 2005. "What's in a title? Numbers of words and the presence of colons," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 63(2), pages 341-356, April.
    2. Grit Laudel, 2002. "What do we measure by co-authorships?," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(1), pages 3-15, April.
    3. Buter, R.K. & van Raan, A.F.J., 2011. "Non-alphanumeric characters in titles of scientific publications: An analysis of their occurrence and correlation with citation impact," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 608-617.
    4. Didegah, Fereshteh & Thelwall, Mike, 2013. "Which factors help authors produce the highest impact research? Collaboration, journal and document properties," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 861-873.
    5. James Hartley, 2012. "To cite or not to cite: author self-citations and the impact factor," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(2), pages 313-317, August.
    6. Ali Gazni & Mike Thelwall, 2014. "The long-term influence of collaboration on citation patterns," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(3), pages 261-271.
    7. A. Abrizah & Mohammadamin Erfanmanesh & Vala Ali Rohani & Mike Thelwall & Jonathan M. Levitt & Fereshteh Didegah, 2014. "Sixty-four years of informetrics research: productivity, impact and collaboration," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(1), pages 569-585, October.
    8. Dimitar Todorovsky, 2014. "Follow-up study: on the working time budget of a university teacher. 45 years self-observation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(3), pages 2063-2070, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. James Hartley & Guillaume Cabanac, 2016. "Are two authors better than one? Can writing in pairs affect the readability of academic blogs?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(3), pages 2119-2122, December.
    2. James Hartley & John Cowan & Cynthia Deeson & Peter Thomas, 2016. "Book reviews in time," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(3), pages 2123-2128, December.
    3. Xuechun Xiang & Jing Li, 2020. "A diachronic comparative study of research article titles in linguistics and literature journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(2), pages 847-866, February.
    4. Anton Oleinik & Svetlana Kirdina-Chandler & Irina Popova & Tatyana Shatalova, 2017. "On academic reading: citation patterns and beyond," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(1), pages 417-435, October.
    5. Malik Muhammad Saad Missen & Sajeeha Qureshi & Nadeem Salamat & Nadeem Akhtar & Hina Asmat & Mickaël Coustaty & V. B. Surya Prasath, 2020. "Scientometric analysis of social science and science disciplines in a developing nation: a case study of Pakistan in the last decade," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(1), pages 113-142, April.

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