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Abstracts, introductions and discussions: How far do they differ in style?

Author

Listed:
  • James Hartley

    (University of Keele)

  • James W. Pennebaker

    (University of Texas)

  • Claire Fox

    (University of Keele)

Abstract

Two computer-based style programs were used to analyse the Abstracts, Introductions and Discussions of 80 educational psychology journal articles. Measures were made of the overall readability of the texts as well as of sentence lengths, difficult and unique words, articles, prepositions and pronouns. The results showed that the Abstracts scored worst on most of these measures of readability, the Introductions came next, and the Discussions did best of all. However, although the mean scores between the sections differed, the authors wrote in stylistically consistent ways across the sections. Thus readability was variable across the sections but consistent within the authors.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:57:y:2003:i:3:d:10.1023_a:1025008802657
    DOI: 10.1023/A:1025008802657
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Rosemary King, 1976. "A comparison of the readability of abstracts with their source documents," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 27(2), pages 118-121, March.
    2. Gladys B. Dronberger & Gerald T. Kowitz, 1975. "Abstract readability as a factor in information systems," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 26(2), pages 108-111, March.
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    Cited by:

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    7. Meva Bayrak Karsli & Sinem Karabey & Nergiz Ercil Cagiltay & Yuksel Goktas, 2018. "Comparison of the discussion sections of PhD dissertations in educational technology: the case of Turkey and the USA," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(3), pages 1381-1403, December.
    8. 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.
    9. Xi Zhao & Li Li & Wei Xiao, 2023. "The diachronic change of research article abstract difficulty across disciplines: a cognitive information-theoretic approach," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-12, December.
    10. Ante, Lennart, 2022. "The relationship between readability and scientific impact: Evidence from emerging technology discourses," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1).
    11. Yue Su & Jia Xue & Xiaoqian Liu & Peijing Wu & Junxiang Chen & Chen Chen & Tianli Liu & Weigang Gong & Tingshao Zhu, 2020. "Examining the Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown in Wuhan and Lombardy: A Psycholinguistic Analysis on Weibo and Twitter," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(12), pages 1-10, June.
    12. Shuo Xu & Ling Li & Xin An & Liyuan Hao & Guancan Yang, 2021. "An approach for detecting the commonality and specialty between scientific publications and patents," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 7445-7475, September.
    13. Christos Alexakis & Michael Dowling & Konstantinos Eleftheriou & Michael Polemis, 2021. "Textual Machine Learning: An Application to Computational Economics Research," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 57(1), pages 369-385, January.
    14. Shan Wang & Xiaojun Liu & Jie Zhou, 2022. "Readability is decreasing in language and linguistics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(8), pages 4697-4729, August.
    15. 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.
    16. 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.
    17. Berninger, Marc & Kiesel, Florian & Schiereck, Dirk & Gaar, Eduard, 2021. "Citations and the readers’ information-extracting costs of finance articles," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    18. Diego Marino Fages, 2020. "Write better, publish better," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(3), pages 1671-1681, March.
    19. Naser Rashidi & Hussein Meihami, 2018. "Informetrics of Scientometrics abstracts: a rhetorical move analysis of the research abstracts published in Scientometrics journal," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 1975-1994, September.

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