David Card too Stefano DellaVigna documented these patterns inwards "Nine Facts virtually Top Journals inwards Economics," dorsum inwards the March 2013 inwards the Journal of Economic Literature (51:1, pp. 144–161, freely available here, or amongst a subscription here). They conduct maintain straightaway updated about of those facts amongst 5 years of additional information in “Update to ‘Nine Facts virtually Top Journals inwards Economics.’”
The figure below shows 2 of the changes, using information from 5 of the most highly prominent enquiry journals inwards economic science (namely, the American Economic Review, Econometrica, the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, too the Review of Economic Studies). the bluish trouble shows trends inwards the average page length of an economic science article: roughly a tripling inwards length shape 1980 upwards to the present. The yellowish trouble shows a alter inwards the number of co-authors. Back inwards the 1980s, the average newspaper had 1.5 co-authors; now, it's virtually 2.5 co-authors.
Lots of hypotheses conduct maintain been proposed to explicate these patterns.
- Greater newspaper length may number from referees too mag editors who conduct maintain travel to a greater extent than probable to need additional details too background, including an overview of past times literature, both a theory too an empirical department inwards every paper, too requests to while out too respond to option hypotheses too counterarguments.
- Greater length may likewise number from hypersensitive authors who experience every bit if they only cannot deportment to travel into impress without explicitly guarding themselves past times responding to every comment they conduct maintain e'er received or countering every criticism they conduct maintain e'er heard when presenting their newspaper at seminars.
- The rising of online publication agency that costs of newspaper too stamp hateful less, so physical weight matters less, too the monetary costs of longer papers to publishers are less salient.
- Some journals accuse libraries a subscription fee past times the number of pages downloaded, too thence conduct maintain an incentive for longer articles.
- Empirical travel has travel to a greater extent than prominent, too inwards about cases to a greater extent than complex, encouraging both greater length too likewise to a greater extent than co-authors to bargain amongst dissimilar parts of the analysis.
- Co-authoring several papers may live on a safer way for a immature professor to construct upwards a portfolio of publications rather than focusing on individually authored papers.
- The rising of computing ability too the meshing has made it easier for co-authors to travel together fifty-fifty if they are non physically located at the same place.
At my ain journal, many of our authors ship along initiative off drafts that are longer than nosotros want. Often the additional length is modest--maybe 10-20% over. But it's mutual for us to have drafts that are 50% longer than nosotros want, too at to the lowest degree a few times each twelvemonth nosotros have initiative off drafts that are to a greater extent than than double our requested length. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 lot of my chore every bit an editor is to check the trouble on length: inwards fact, every bit parta of the refereeing process, I practice a hands-on edit of articles too genuinely cutting downward the length. We so enquire the authors to travel amongst that shortened draft, or at to the lowest degree to conduct maintain it into account, when revising inwards response to noun comments.
What stops other journals from setting a difficult length boundary too sticking to it? One plausible response is that whatsoever mag which tries to enforce such length limits may good discovery that submissions migrate to other journals without such a length limit. Another response is that it tin live on a time-consuming too painful chore to bring down downward length substantially. It's a full-time chore for me. And trimming one's ain writing tin live on peculiarly painful. Lots of mag editors exactly don't desire to bang heads amongst authors over length issues.
But when the average length of an article triples, it raises to a greater extent than fundamental questions virtually the role of an academic article. (And it's worth remembering that this is the length of the published article, non including appendix materials typically published online, which look to me to conduct maintain exploded inwards length every bit well.)
For example, is a enquiry article genuinely meant to live on read, word-for-word, get-go to end? It seems plausible that if articles conduct maintain travel 3 times every bit long, so students too researchers living inwards a footing amongst exactly 24 hours inwards a 24-hour interval tin read alone virtually one-third every bit many articles. My gauge is that most articles are non genuinely meant to live on read, but alone to live on skimmed. Perhaps skimming a 48-page article doesn't conduct maintain 3 times every bit long every bit skimming the 16-page articles of several decades ago. But it in all probability takes a fifty-fifty the experts a footling longer.
At a deeper level, is a enquiry article meant to depict what a researcher has most of late found? If so, so electrical flow articles are burying their fundamental role inwards waves of other material. David Autor, who was my boss every bit editor of JEP about years back, of late said that reading a 94-page draft of a newspaper was “like beingness bludgeoned to expiry amongst a nerf bat.”
Alternatively, is a enquiry article meant to live on a total tape of how the dependent area at mitt stands at a for sure betoken inwards time: that is, background context, previous findings, theoretical framework, mixture of novel empirical or theoretical findings, concerns too questions virtually the novel findings, all surrounded amongst side avenues too implications for futurity research? If that's the goal, so I suspect the length of papers is exactly going to travel along drifting higher, too those who read (or skim) papers are exactly going to conduct maintain a harder too harder time.
From the perspective of a professional person editor, similar me, a lot of the length inwards academic articles is exactly flabby writing, non an excess of maybe useful background too details. But the tripling of length inwards academic mag article is non generally virtually flabby writing. Instead, this extreme increment of length is a norm that has evolved, a norm that's bad for readers of enquiry articles too makes light-touch skimming a survival strategy--and thence non well-suited for disseminating actual enquiry findings. Sumber http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/
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