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More confident, less formal: stylistic changes in academic psychology writing from 1970 to 2016

Author

Listed:
  • Melissa A. Wheeler

    (Swinburne University of Technology)

  • Ekaterina Vylomova

    (The University of Melbourne)

  • Melanie J. McGrath

    (The University of Melbourne)

  • Nick Haslam

    (The University of Melbourne)

Abstract

Stylistic changes in academic psychology writing were examined in a corpus of 790,520 psychology journal article abstracts published between 1970 and 2016. We anticipated that changing linguistic norms of scientific writing and rising pressures to publish and promote research findings would be evident in increasing levels of personal pronoun use and expressive confidence (“clout”) over the study period. These predictions were tested using indices generated by Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software. Consistent with expectations, personal pronouns (especially first-person plural) became markedly more common over time, as did average levels of clout. Indices of analytical thinking, authenticity, and emotional tone did not show comparable shifts, suggesting that the primary changes are relatively circumscribed. Implications of these changes are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Melissa A. Wheeler & Ekaterina Vylomova & Melanie J. McGrath & Nick Haslam, 2021. "More confident, less formal: stylistic changes in academic psychology writing from 1970 to 2016," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(12), pages 9603-9612, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:126:y:2021:i:12:d:10.1007_s11192-021-04166-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-021-04166-9
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    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. 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.
    3. Adrian Furnham, 2021. "Publish or perish: rejection, scientometrics and academic success," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(1), pages 843-847, January.
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    Cited by:

    1. Mingxin Yao & Ying Wei & Huiyu Wang, 2023. "Promoting research by reducing uncertainty in academic writing: a large-scale diachronic case study on hedging in Science research articles across 25 years," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(8), pages 4541-4558, August.
    2. Zhijun Li, 2022. "Is academic writing less passivized? Corpus-based evidence from research article abstracts in applied linguistics over the past three decades (1990–2019)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(10), pages 5773-5792, October.

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