Letchford, Adrian, Preis, Tobias and Moat, Helen Susannah (2015) The advantage of simple paper abstracts. Journal of Informetrics, 10 (1). pp. 1-8. doi:10.1016/j.joi.2015.11.001

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Abstract

Each year, researchers publish an immense number of scientific papers. While some receive many citations, others receive none. Here we investigate whether any of this variance can be explained by the choice of words in a paper's abstract. We find that doubling the word frequency of an average abstract increases citations by 0.70%. We also find that journals which publish papers whose abstracts are shorter and contain more frequently used words receive slightly more citations per paper. Specifically, adding a 5 letter word to an abstract decreases the number of citations by 0.02%. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the style in which a paper's abstract is written bears some relation to its scientific impact.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	T Technology > T Technology (General)
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School > Behavioural Science Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Technical writing
Journal or Publication Title:	Journal of Informetrics
Publisher:	Elsevier BV
ISSN:	1751-1577
Official Date:	13 December 2015
Dates:	Date Event 13 December 2015 Published 1 November 2015 Accepted 16 June 2015 Submitted
Date of first compliant deposit:	27 January 2016
Volume:	10
Number:	1
Number of Pages:	8
Page Range:	pp. 1-8
DOI:	10.1016/j.joi.2015.11.001
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access

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