journal article titles as tools for self-presentation
TRANSCRIPT
Journal article titles as tools for self-presentation
Staša MilojevićSchool of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University Bloomington
Scientific documents• Key element in practice of science
(Callon, Courtial, Turner & Banin 1983; Latour & Woolgar 1986)
• “The central medium for the dissemination and exchange of scientific ideas” (Bowker, 2005, p. 126)
• The primary purpose of journal articles is to persuade the intended audience of worth, originality, and cognitive authority
• Shared conceptual system of scientific communities expressed through the terminology used in documents.
• Disciplines/fields exist through a medium of ordered language.
Language and academic identity“…we use language as the raw materials for the presentation of ourselves to the world and that what we say and write aligns us with or separates us from other people and their positions.”
K. Hyland Disciplinary Identities
Identity as a processIdentity is socially and historically constituted by individuals through their social relations, and is thus something that does not belong WITHIN an individual, but BETWEEN persons. (Vygotsky, Mind in Society).
Document titles• Function as “attention triggers” (Bazerman 1985,1989)
• Have undergone a change during the 20th century, becoming
• More informative
• More specific
• Containing a larger number of words that indicate article content
Title types• Declarative titles – state the
main findings or conclusions
• Descriptive titles – describe the subject of the article but do not reveal the main conclusions
• Interrogative titles – introduce the subject in the form of a question
• Jamali, H. R., & Nikzad, M. (2011). Article title type and its relation with the number of downloads and citations. Scientometrics, 88(2), 653–661.
Characterization of authorsGroups of authors having different:
•Academic age
•Do titles of senior and junior researchers differ?
•Productivity level
•Do prolific researchers have different titles?
•Collaborative activity level
•Do researchers who collaborate more have different titles?
Pilot study: core journals in Astronomy
Field Number of journals
Number of articles (1961-2010)
Number of articles (2006-2010)
Astronomy 4 156,871 31,470
Retrieved from Web of Science.
11
12
13
14
15
1 10
wor
ds
Individual productivity
Title length
11
12
13
14
15
1 10 100
wor
ds
Number of collaborators plus one
Title length
11
12
13
14
15
0 10 20 30 40 50
wor
ds
Academic age
Title length
Longest titles: assistant professors and members of large teams
Pilot study: astronomy
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
0 10 20 30 40 50
perc
enta
ge o
f pap
ers
Academic age
Titles containing a subtitle
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
1 10
perc
enta
ge o
f pap
ers
Individual productivity
Titles containing a subtitle
20%25%30%35%40%45%50%55%60%65%70%75%80%
1 10 100
perc
enta
ge o
f pap
ers
Number of collaborators plus one
Titles containing a subtitle
Most frequent use of subtitles: assistant professors, authors with medium productivity and members of large teams
Pilot study: astronomy
0%
1%
2%
3%
4%
5%
6%
7%
0 10 20 30 40 50
perc
enta
ge o
f pap
ers
Academic age
Titles containing a question
0%
1%
2%
3%
4%
5%
6%
7%
1 10
perc
enta
ge o
f pap
ers
Individual productivity
Titles containing a question
0%
1%
2%
3%
4%
5%
6%
7%
1 10 100
perc
enta
ge o
f pap
ers
Number of collaborators plus one
Titles containing a question
Most frequent use of interrogative titles : postdocs and senior researchers, very productive authors. Never used by members of very large teams
Pilot study: astronomy
5500
5700
5900
6100
6300
6500
6700
6900
0 10 20 30 40 50
lexi
cal d
iver
sity
-un
ique
phr
ases
Academic age
Cognitive extent
5500
5700
5900
6100
6300
6500
6700
6900
1 10
lexi
cal d
iver
sity
-un
ique
phr
ases
Individual productivity
Cognitive extent
5500
5700
5900
6100
6300
6500
6700
6900
1 10 100
lexi
cal d
iver
sity
-un
ique
phr
ases
Number of collaborators plus one
Cognitive extent
Cognitive extent = range of topics: highest at the beginning and the end of career. More productive/collaborative authors as a whole work on only a subset of topics in astronomy
Pilot study: astronomy
Thank you!Staša MilojevićSchool of Informatics and ComputingIndiana University [email protected]