Reflecting on the use of persuasive communication devices in academic writing

Description

As researchers, we use academic writing to present our results to other academics and to a wider audience. In doing so, we may be tempted to use persuasive communication devices for promoting our research. These devices may be at risk of misleading readers and reviewers when assessing our research. In this document, we identify a list of such communication devices. A precursor of this list was originally shared on Twitter by Olivier Corneille who received comments and additional examples collected in the list below. We discussed and clustered them as a result of reflections made on our own writing style, as well as observations made in research articles by other authors.

The items are organized along a tentative typology that may be reconsidered at a later stage. We focus on writing styles that apply to the presentation and interpretation of research findings, including data visualization, but excluding issues related to methods and statistical analyses.

Our intention with this document is to encourage self-reflection amongst authors (contributing researchers) as well as reviewers and editors on the use and potential misuse of persuasive communication devices in written scholarly reports, so that we as a global scholarly community can uphold highest possible standards to research rigor.

Please feel free to make suggestions in THIS LIVE DOCUMENT.

 

Contributors

Olivier Corneille, UCLouvain, Belgium, ORCID: 0000-0003-4005-4372, Twitter: @opatcorneille

Harriet Carroll, Lund University, Sweden; University of Aberdeen, UK; NHS Grampian, UK, ORCID: 0000-0002-4998-4675, Twitter: @angryhacademic

Jo Havemann, Access 2 Perspectives, Germany, ORCID: 0000-0002-6157-1494, Twitter: @openscicomm 

Emma L. Henderson, University of Surrey, ORCID: 0000-0002-5396-2321, Twitter: @EmmaHendersonRR

Nicholas P. Holmes, (University of Nottingham, UK), ORCID: 0000-0001-9268-4179, Twitter: @TheHandLab

Leon D. Lotter, Research Center Jülich, Germany, ORCID: 0000-0002-2337-6073, Twitter: @LeonDLotter

Peter Lush, (University of Sussex), ORCID: 0000-0002-0402-1699, Twitter: @PeterLush4

Nicholas Outa, Maseno University, Kenya, ORCID: 0000-0002-4085-0398, Twitter: @nichouta 

Corresponding authors: OH, olivier.corneille@uclouvain.be & JH, info@access2perspectives.org

Acknowledgements: We thank all commenters on Twitter and suggestions via e-mail that reached us, a.o. from Dr. Iain Johnston (ORCID: 0000-0001-8559-3519). Original Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/opatcorneille/status/1459432305865465858

Contributions according to Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT)

• Conceptualisation and writing original draft: OC 

• Writing - review & editing: JH, HC, NO, HC, LDL, ELH, NPH, PL