IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v107y2016i3d10.1007_s11192-016-1896-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When science meets cluttered writing: adjectives and adverbs in academia revisited

Author

Listed:
  • Lei Lei

    (Huazhong University of Science and Technology)

Abstract

Okulicz-Kozaryn (Scientometrics 96:679–681, 2013) examined the readability issue in terms of the proportions of adjectives and adverbs in research articles. The results showed that natural scientists used the lowest proportion of adjectives and adverbs, while social scientists employed more adjectives and adverbs than natural scientists. Based on the findings, he argued for killing much of the adjectives and adverbs in academic writing for brevity and conciseness. However, adjectives and adverbs serve different functions in academic writing. Thus, the present study investigated the use of adjectives and adverbs separately with a much larger set of academic writing of various genres and a subsample of only research articles. The results indicated that the proportions of adjectives in natural science and applied science are higher than those in arts and humanities and social science, while the proportions of adverbs in natural science and applied science are lower than those in arts and humanities and social science. The results seemingly complemented Okulicz-Kozaryn’s (2013) findings. It is accordingly suggested that researchers in arts and humanities and social science should use less adverbs in academic writing. Issues concerning readability and impact of articles are also discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Lei Lei, 2016. "When science meets cluttered writing: adjectives and adverbs in academia revisited," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(3), pages 1361-1372, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:107:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-016-1896-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-016-1896-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-016-1896-3
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-016-1896-3?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. Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn, 2013. "Cluttered writing: adjectives and adverbs in academia," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 96(3), pages 679-681, 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. Amnah Alluqmani & Lior Shamir, 2018. "Writing styles in different scientific disciplines: a data science approach," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(2), pages 1071-1085, May.
    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. Peng, Wen & Yue, Mingliang & Sun, Mingyue & Ma, Tingcan, 2024. "Revision and academic impact: A case study of bioRxiv preprint papers," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1).
    4. 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.
    5. Amon, Julian & Hornik, Kurt, 2022. "Is it all bafflegab? – Linguistic and meta characteristics of research articles in prestigious economics journals," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    6. 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.

    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. Andrés Marroquín & Julio H. Cole, 2015. "Economical writing (or, “Think Hemingway”)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(1), pages 251-259, April.
    2. Myrto-Panagiota Zacharof & Anna Charalambidou, 2018. "An Exploration of the Sub-Register of Chemical Engineering Research Papers Published in English," Publications, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-19, July.
    3. 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.
    4. Edoardo Magnone, 2014. "A novel graphical representation of sentence complexity: the description and its application," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(2), pages 1301-1329, February.
    5. Diego Marino Fages, 2020. "Write better, publish better," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(3), pages 1671-1681, March.
    6. 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.
    7. Amnah Alluqmani & Lior Shamir, 2018. "Writing styles in different scientific disciplines: a data science approach," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(2), pages 1071-1085, May.
    8. 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.

    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:spr:scient:v:107:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-016-1896-3. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.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.