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The readability of scientific texts is decreasing over time
Clarity and accuracy of reporting are fundamental to the scientific process. Readability formulas can estimate how difficult a text is to read. Here, in a corpus consisting of 709,577 abstracts published between 1881 and 2015 from 123 scientific journals, we show that the readability of science is s...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5584989/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28873054 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.27725 |
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author | Plavén-Sigray, Pontus Matheson, Granville James Schiffler, Björn Christian Thompson, William Hedley |
author_facet | Plavén-Sigray, Pontus Matheson, Granville James Schiffler, Björn Christian Thompson, William Hedley |
author_sort | Plavén-Sigray, Pontus |
collection | PubMed |
description | Clarity and accuracy of reporting are fundamental to the scientific process. Readability formulas can estimate how difficult a text is to read. Here, in a corpus consisting of 709,577 abstracts published between 1881 and 2015 from 123 scientific journals, we show that the readability of science is steadily decreasing. Our analyses show that this trend is indicative of a growing use of general scientific jargon. These results are concerning for scientists and for the wider public, as they impact both the reproducibility and accessibility of research findings. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5584989 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-55849892017-09-06 The readability of scientific texts is decreasing over time Plavén-Sigray, Pontus Matheson, Granville James Schiffler, Björn Christian Thompson, William Hedley eLife Feature Article Clarity and accuracy of reporting are fundamental to the scientific process. Readability formulas can estimate how difficult a text is to read. Here, in a corpus consisting of 709,577 abstracts published between 1881 and 2015 from 123 scientific journals, we show that the readability of science is steadily decreasing. Our analyses show that this trend is indicative of a growing use of general scientific jargon. These results are concerning for scientists and for the wider public, as they impact both the reproducibility and accessibility of research findings. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2017-09-05 /pmc/articles/PMC5584989/ /pubmed/28873054 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.27725 Text en © 2017, Plavén-Sigray et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Feature Article Plavén-Sigray, Pontus Matheson, Granville James Schiffler, Björn Christian Thompson, William Hedley The readability of scientific texts is decreasing over time |
title | The readability of scientific texts is decreasing over time |
title_full | The readability of scientific texts is decreasing over time |
title_fullStr | The readability of scientific texts is decreasing over time |
title_full_unstemmed | The readability of scientific texts is decreasing over time |
title_short | The readability of scientific texts is decreasing over time |
title_sort | readability of scientific texts is decreasing over time |
topic | Feature Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5584989/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28873054 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.27725 |
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