Abstract
In this paper we present and discuss the results of six enquiries into the first author’s academic writing over the last 50 years. Our aim is to assess whether or not his academic writing style has changed with age, experience, and cognitive decline. The results of these studies suggest that the readability of textbook chapters written by Hartley has remained fairly stable for over 50 years, with the later chapters becoming easier to read. The format of the titles used for chapters and papers has also remained much the same, with an increase in the use of titles written in the form of questions. It also appears that the format of the chosen titles had no effect on citation rates, but that papers that obtained the highest citation rates were written with colleagues rather by Hartley alone. Finally it is observed that Hartley’s publication rate has remained much the same for over 50 years but that this has been achieved at the expense of other academic activities.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
This ‘short curriculum vitae’ lists Hartley’s major publications (for the sake of convenience). It includes, for example, only 5 of his 23 publications with undergraduates (see Hartley 2014a), and short notes, letters, etc. are not included.
References
Abrizah, A., Erfanmanesh, M., Rohani, V. A., Thelwall, M., Levitt, J. M., & Didegah, F. (2014). Sixty-four years of informetrics research: Productivity, impact and collaboration. Scientometrics, 101(1), 569–585. doi:10.1007/s11192-014-1390-8.
Boyd, R. L., & Pennebaker, J. W. (in press). Did Shakespeare write Double Falsehood? Identifying an individual’s psychological signature with text analysis. Psychological Science. (Paper available from the authors, University of Texas at Austin, USA).
Buter, R. K., & van Raan, A. F. J. (2011). Non-alphanumeric characters in titles of scientific publications: An analysis of their occurrence and correlation with citation impact. Journal of Informetrics, 5(4), 608–617. doi:10.1016/j.joi.2011.05.008.
Didegah, F., & Thelwall, M. (2013). Which factors help authors produce the highest impact research? Collaboration, journal and document properties. Journal of Informetrics, 7(4), 861–873. doi:10.1016/j.joi.2013.08.006.
Flesch, R. (1948). A new readability yardstick. Journal of Applied Psychology, 32(3), 221–233. doi:10.1037/h0057532.
Gazni, A., & Thelwall, M. (2014). The long-term influence of collaboration on citation patterns. Research Evaluation, 23(3), 261–271. doi:10.1093/reseval/rvu014.
Graesser, A. C., McNamara, D. S., & Kulikowich, J. M. (2011). Coh-metrix: Providing multilevel analyses of text characteristics. Educational Researcher, 40(5), 223–234. doi:10.3102/0013189x11413260.
Hartley, J. (2007). Planning that title: Practices and preferences for titles with colons in academic articles. Library & Information Science Research, 29(4), 553–568. doi:10.1016/j.lisr.2007.05.002.
Hartley, J. (2008). Academic writing and publishing: A practical handbook. Abingdon: Routledge.
Hartley, J. (2012). To cite or not to cite: Author self-citations and the impact factor. Scientometrics, 92(2), 313–317. doi:10.1007/s11192-011-0568-6.
Hartley, J. (2014a). Publishing with undergraduates. Psychology Teaching Review, 20(2), 158–160.
Hartley, J. (2014b). Titles are the hardest thing: How can we make them more effective. Retrieved from. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2012/05/24/titles-are-hardest-more-effective (LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog).
Hartley, J., Howe, M., & McKeachie, W. (2001). Writing through time: Longitudinal studies of the effects of new technology on writing. British Journal of Educational Technology, 32(2), 141–151. doi:10.1111/1467-8535.00185.
Hartley, J., Sotto, E., & Pennebaker, J. (2003). Speaking versus typing: A case-study of the effects of using voice-recognition software on academic correspondence. British Journal of Educational Technology, 34(1), 5–16. doi:10.1111/1467-8535.00300.
Hess, T. M. (2014). Selective engagement of cognitive resources: Motivational influences on older adults’ cognitive functioning. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 9(4), 388–407. doi:10.1177/1745691614527465.
Jacsó, P. (2010). Metadata mega mess in Google Scholar. Online Information Review, 34(1), 175–191. doi:10.1108/14684521011024191.
Labbé, D. (2007). Experiments on authorship attribution by intertextual distance in English. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics, 14(1), 33–80. doi:10.1080/09296170600850601.
Laudel, G. (2002). What do we measure by co-authorships? Research Evaluation, 11(1), 3–15. doi:10.3152/147154402781776961.
Lewison, G., & Hartley, J. (2005). What’s in a title? Numbers of words and the presence of colons. Scientometrics, 63(2), 341–356. doi:10.1007/s11192-005-0216-0.
Lifetime achievement award: James Hartley (2014). The Psychologist, 27(8):605.
Markowitz, D. M., & Hancock, J. T. (2014). Linguistic traces of a scientific fraud: The case of Diederik Stapel. PLoS One, 9(8), e105937. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0105937.
Pennebaker, J. W. (2013). How authors’ forgettable words reveal their personality and social behaviors. Information Design Journal, 20(3), 267–272. doi:10.1075/idj.20.3.062pen.
Pennebaker, J. W., & Stone, L. D. (2003). Words of wisdom: Language use over the life span. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 291–301. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.291.
Savoy, J. (2012). Authorship attribution: A comparative study of three text corpora and three languages. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics, 19(2), 132–161. doi:10.1080/09296174.2012.659003.
Skinner, B. F. (1983). Intellectual self-management in old age. American Psychologist, 38(3), 239–244. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.38.3.239.
Sommer, R. (2014). My last journal article. (Unpublished manuscript available from the author, Dept. Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 8686).
Todorovsky, D. (1997). On the working time budget of the university teacher. Scientometrics, 40(1), 13–21. doi:10.1007/BF02459259.
Todorovsky, D. (2014). Follow-up study: On the working time budget of a university teacher. 45 years self-observation. Scientometrics, 101(3), 2063–2070. doi:10.1007/s11192-014-1284-9.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions, and particularly to the one who cast our data into graphical forms.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hartley, J., Cabanac, G. An academic odyssey: writing over time. Scientometrics 103, 1073–1082 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-015-1562-1
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-015-1562-1