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Cluttered writing: adjectives and adverbs in academia

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Abstract

Scientific writing is about communicating ideas. Today, simplicity is more important than ever. Scientist are overwhelmed with new information. The overall growth rate for scientific publication over the last few decades has been at least 4.7 % per year, which means doubling publication volume every 15 years. I measure simplicity/readability with proportion of adjectives and adverbs in a paper, and find natural science to be the most readable and social science the least readable.

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Correspondence to Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn.

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Okulicz-Kozaryn, A. Cluttered writing: adjectives and adverbs in academia. Scientometrics 96, 679–681 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-012-0937-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-012-0937-9

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