Papers that use positive words in headlines likelier to be cited
Perception is reality, the adage goes, and that may even be true when it comes to conveying the findings of medical and life-science research. The language male and female scientists choose to describe their discoveries can drive levels of attention from peers, boost subsequent citations, and eventually contribute to career advancement. These are the findings of an analysis led by an international team of researchers in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School, the University of Mannheim, and Yale University, and published today in BMJ. It is believed to be the first large-scale study to quantify gender differences in language framing in biomedical research. The researchers analyzed more than 6 million peer-reviewed clinical and life-science publications and found that papers with male lead authors were up to 21 percent more likely to use positive framing — language that casts the findings as highly significant — in titles and abstracts than those with female lead...