Fellow-Klasse 2019-2020Prof. Dr. Vera Nünning

Arbeitsvorhaben am Marsilius-Kolleg

Does the quality of writing influence scientific impact?

The importance and quality of a new discovery presented in a scientific article is often evaluated by the number of its citations. It is unclear, however, in how far the quality of the writing influences the impact of scientific articles. Since the impact factor is of vital importance not only for the advance of science, but also for the career of scientists, we want to explore whether a non-scientific factor – the quality of the writing – influences the reach and popularity of scientific articles.

Our hypothesis is that an article that is easy and enjoyable to read and that contains stylistic features that attract readers’ attention is read and cited more often than an article hard to follow and written in a less attractive style, even if the scientific results are of comparable quality and importance. On the basis of a comprehensive set of articles published in a variety of scientific journals (chosen and analyzed by Frauke Gräter), we want to explore whether the quality of the writing correlates with the number of citations or other metrics of impact. We will follow two lines of research: a high-throughput machine learning approach to explore the degree of readability and coherence of the text (Michael Strube), and a detailed analysis of the stylistic features of exemplary articles (Vera Nünning).

Our project aims to stimulate an informed discussion about the significance of the quality of writing for the creation of successful scientific texts.