The data paper as a sociolinguistic epistemic object: A content analysis on the rhetorical moves used in data paper abstracts

Abstract

The data paper is an emerging academic genre that focuses on the description of research data objects. However, there is a lack of empirical knowledge about this rising genre in quantitative science studies, particularly from the perspective of its linguistic features. To fill this gap, this research aims to offer a first quantitative examination of which rhetorical moves-rhetorical units performing a coherent narrative function-are used in data paper abstracts, as well as how these moves are used. To this end, we developed a new classification scheme for rhetorical moves in data paper abstracts by expanding a well-received system that focuses on Englishlanguage research article abstracts. We used this expanded scheme to classify and analyze rhetorical moves used in two flagship data journals, Scientific Data and Data in Brief. We found that data papers exhibit a combination of IMRaD-and data-oriented moves and that the usage differences between the journals can be largely explained by journal policies concerning abstract and paper structure. This research offers a novel examination of how the data paper, a novel data-oriented knowledge representation, is composed, which greatly contributes to a deeper understanding of data and data publication in the scholarly communication system. Table 2: Examples of rhetorical moves as used in our paper sample Move Example

Mining Semantic Relations in Data References to Understand the Roles of Research Data in Academic Literature

“…Prior investigations of data references have restricted their analysis to specific elements of literature (e.g., abstracts) or types of works (e.g., data papers) [36,46]. Manual approaches to study data references are time and resource-intensive, and do not easily scale [47].…”

Opening research data contributes to the citations of related research articles: Evidence from Data in Brief

“…It also makes authors' data comprehensible and citable. An unique advantage of DIB publication records is the 'related research article' search option that links data papers to related research articles that use the datasets described in the data papers (Li & Jiao, 2021). The relationship between a data paper and a related research article provides an opportunity for us to explore how they can influence each other.…”

Dissemination effect of data papers on scientific datasets

“…The distinction between data papers and certain academic publication categories is partially blurred, especially when compared to traditional research papers, as both genres emerge within similar social norms and contexts of scientific knowledge production, such as the peer review system (Li & Jiao, 2022). With the continuous development of data papers, researchers have approached and delineated the concept from various perspectives.…”

“…She found that data journals focus more on data production information (data collection, data producers, and projects) than on general dataset properties or repository information. Li and Jiao (2022) devised a classification scheme for rhetorical moves in data paper abstracts to provide a quantitative analysis of the rhetorical moves employed in data paper abstracts and their usage patterns. The study revealed that data papers published in "Scientific Data" and "Data in Brief" display a combination of introduction, method, results, and discussion-oriented moves as well as data-oriented moves.…”