Something for everyone

Shailes, Sarah

doi:10.7554/elife.25411

Cited by 31 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Future surveys may try to find out the average reading grade of researchers and scientists working in the neuroimaging field because this information is currently lacking. Healthcare and life science journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and PLoS Medicine have adopted the practice of using plain language summaries of research to disseminate research findings to a broader audience of the general public, students, researchers and journalists ( Shailes, 2017 ). The booming neuroimaging literature ( Yeung et al, 2017a , c , e ) certainly requires accurate, sufficient yet understandable accounts of the research performed to translate and disseminate the new knowledge gained ( Illes et al, 2010 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Readability of the 100 Most-Cited Neuroimaging Papers Assessed by Common Readability Formulae

Yeung

Goto

Leung

2018

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Background: From time to time, neuroimaging research findings receive press coverage and attention by the general public. Scientific articles therefore should be written in a readable manner to facilitate knowledge translation and dissemination. However, no published readability report on neuroimaging articles like those published in education, medical and marketing journals is available. As a start, this study therefore aimed to evaluate the readability of the most-cited neuroimaging articles.Methods: The 100 most-cited articles in neuroimaging identified in a recent study by Kim et al. (2016) were evaluated. Headings, mathematical equations, tables, figures, footnotes, appendices, and reference lists were trimmed from the articles. The rest was processed for number of characters, words and sentences. Five readability indices that indicate the school grade appropriate for that reading difficulty (Automated Readability Index, Coleman-Liau Index, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Gunning Fog index and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook index) were computed. An average reading grade level (AGL) was calculated by taking the mean of these five indices. The Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) score was also computed. The readability of the trimmed abstracts and full texts was evaluated against number of authors, country of corresponding author, total citation count, normalized citation count, article type, publication year, impact factor of the year published and type of journal.Results: Mean AGL ± standard deviation (SD) of the trimmed abstracts and full texts were 17.15 ± 2.81 (college graduate level) and 14.22 ± 1.66 (college level) respectively. Mean FRE score ± SD of the abstracts and full texts were 15.70 ± 14.11 (college graduate level) and 32.11 ± 8.56 (college level) respectively. Both items indicated that the full texts were significantly more readable than the abstracts (p < 0.001). Abstract readability was not associated with any factors under investigation. ANCOVAs showed that review/meta-analysis (mean AGL ± SD: 16.0 ± 1.4) and higher impact factor significantly associated with lower readability of the trimmed full texts surveyed.Conclusion: Concerning the 100 most-cited articles in neuroimaging, the full text appears to be more readable than the abstracts. Experimental articles and methodology papers were more readable than reviews/meta-analyses. Articles published in journals with higher impact factors were less readable.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Readability of the 100 Most-Cited Neuroimaging Papers Assessed by Common Readability Formulae

Yeung

Goto

Leung

2018

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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“…Lay summaries can help journals in life sciences and biomedicine to reach out to patients and others who might benefit from the research [ 41 ]. Thus, they may assist the diffusion of research on social media platforms such as Twitter.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, they may assist the diffusion of research on social media platforms such as Twitter. Using a journal list provided by Shailes [ 41 ], the articles were divided in two groups, those with and those without a lay summary.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Could early tweet counts predict later citation counts? A gender study in Life Sciences and Biomedicine (2014–2016)

Dehdarirad

2020

PLoS ONE

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In this study, it was investigated whether early tweets counts could differentially benefit female and male (first, last) authors in terms of the later citation counts received. The data for this study comprised 47,961 articles in the research area of Life Sciences & Biomedicine from 2014–2016, retrieved from Web of Science’s Medline . For each article, the number of received citations per year was downloaded from WOS, while the number of received tweets per year was obtained from PlumX. Using the hurdle regression model, I compared the number of received citations by female and male (first, last) authored papers and then I investigated whether early tweet counts could predict the later citation counts received by female and male (first, last) authored papers. In the regression models, I controlled for several important factors that were investigated in previous research in relation to citation counts, gender or Altmetrics. These included journal impact (SNIP), number of authors, open access, research funding, topic of an article, international collaboration, lay summary, F1000 Score and mega journal. The findings showed that the percentage of papers with male authors in first or last authorship positions was higher than that for female authors. However, female first and last-authored papers had a small but significant citation advantage of 4.7% and 5.5% compared to male-authored papers. The findings also showed that irrespective of whether the factors were included in regression models or not, early tweet counts had a weak positive and significant association with the later citations counts (3.3%) and the probability of a paper being cited (21.1%). Regarding gender, the findings showed that when all variables were controlled, female (first, last) authored papers had a small citation advantage of 3.7% and 4.2% in comparison to the male authored papers for the same number of tweets.

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“…This was validated by the majority (88%) of the respondents in a recent global survey of 14,025 people who thought that scientists should be sharing their results in easy-to-understand language (State of Science Index Survey, 2019). Recognizing the need to adapt reports of scientific findings to non-expert audiences, including scientists working in other fields of research, many journals, such as eLife, Autism Research, Functional Ecology, Cell, and Science, have started offering plain-language summaries or graphical abstracts and video abstracts (eLife, 2019;Shailes, 2017). As another recent study established, from amongst traditional abstracts, graphical abstracts, video abstracts, and plain-language summaries, the latter two most successfully produced comprehension, a feeling of understanding, and enjoyment (Bredbenner & Simon, 2019).…”

Section: Plain-language Summaries Published Along With the Scholarly mentioning

confidence: 99%

The changed – and changing – landscape of serials publishing: Review of the literature on emerging models

Herman

Akeroyd

Bequet³

et al. 2020

Learned Publishing

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This article presents an up-to-date portrayal of the greatly changed landscape of scholarly journal publishing and identifies the emerging trends characterizing it. We consider the attributes, novelty, and disruptive potential of different models, which range from improvements to the extant model to attempts at reconfiguration and transformation. We propose that journal transition can be seen as falling into three categories. The first is enhanced models of the traditional scholarly journal, which typically afford enriched functionality that breaks the bonds of the printed page whilst otherwise remaining wholly traditional in their offerings. The second category is innovative models of the traditional scholarly journal, which aim at supporting the journal in performing its traditional roles through convention-altering ways. The third category is the possible alternatives to the traditional journal, which represent a move towards alternative modes of knowledge dissemination. This review shows that each of the models identified makes contributions to enriching the reporting and showcasing of scholarly output. They also make it more effective and more efficient. However, we conclude that none of the possible alternatives being discussed can serve as a full-fledged alternative to the journal.

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Something for everyone

Abstract: Journals and other scientific organizations produce a diverse variety of plain-language summaries.

Cited by 31 publications

References 5 publications

Readability of the 100 Most-Cited Neuroimaging Papers Assessed by Common Readability Formulae

Readability of the 100 Most-Cited Neuroimaging Papers Assessed by Common Readability Formulae

Could early tweet counts predict later citation counts? A gender study in Life Sciences and Biomedicine (2014–2016)

The changed – and changing – landscape of serials publishing: Review of the literature on emerging models

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