Life Sciences Commons^™

Gender Differences In Peer Review Outcomes And Manuscript Impact At Six Journals Of Ecology And Evolution, Charles W. Fox, C. E. Timothy Paine

Entomology Faculty Publications

The productivity and performance of men is generally rated more highly than that of women in controlled experiments, suggesting conscious or unconscious gender biases in assessment. The degree to which editors and reviewers of scholarly journals exhibit gender biases that influence outcomes of the peer‐review process remains uncertain due to substantial variation among studies. We test whether gender predicts the outcomes of editorial and peer review for >23,000 research manuscripts submitted to six journals in ecology and evolution from 2010 to 2015. Papers with female and male first authors were equally likely to be sent for peer review. However, papers …

Patterns Of Authorship In Ecology And Evolution: First, Last, And Corresponding Authorship Vary With Gender And Geography, Charles W. Fox, Josiah P. Ritchey, C. E. Timothy Paine

Entomology Faculty Publications

The position of an author on the byline of a paper affects the inferences readers make about their contributions to the research. We examine gender differences in authorship in the ecology literature using two datasets: submissions to six journals between 2010 and 2015 (regardless of whether they were accepted), and manuscripts published by 151 journals between 2009 and 2015. Women were less likely to be last (i.e., “senior”) authors (averaging ~23% across journals, years, and datasets) and sole authors (~24%), but more likely to be first author (~38%), relative to their overall frequency of authorship (~31%). However, the proportion of …

Recruitment Of Reviewers Is Becoming Harder At Some Journals: A Test Of The Influence Of Reviewer Fatigue At Six Journals In Ecology And Evolution, Charles W. Fox, Arianne Y. K. Albert, Timothy H. Vines

Entomology Faculty Publications

Background: It is commonly reported by editors that it has become harder to recruit reviewers for peer review and that this is because individuals are being asked to review too often and are experiencing reviewer fatigue. However, evidence supporting these arguments is largely anecdotal.

Main body: We examine responses of individuals to review invitations for six journals in ecology and evolution. The proportion of invitations that lead to a submitted review has been decreasing steadily over 13 years (2003–2015) for four of the six journals examined, with a cumulative effect that has been quite substantial (average decline from 56% of …

Citations Increase With Manuscript Length, Author Number, And References Cited In Ecology Journals, Charles W. Fox, C. E. Timothy Paine, Boris Sauterey

Entomology Faculty Publications

Most top impact factor ecology journals indicate a preference or requirement for short manuscripts; some state clearly defined word limits, whereas others indicate a preference for more concise papers. Yet evidence from a variety of academic fields indicates that within journals longer papers are both more positively reviewed by referees and more highly cited. We examine the relationship between citations received and manuscript length, number of authors, and number of references cited for papers published in 32 ecology journals between 2009 and 2012. We find that longer papers, those with more authors, and those that cite more references are cited …

The Relationship Between Manuscript Title Structure And Success: Editorial Decisions And Citation Performance For An Ecological Journal, Charles W. Fox, C. Sean Burns

Entomology Faculty Publications

A poorly chosen article title may make a paper difficult to discover or discourage readership when discovered, reducing an article's impact. Yet, it is unclear how the structure of a manuscript's title influences readership and impact. We used manuscript tracking data for all manuscripts submitted to the journal Functional Ecology from 2004 to 2013 and citation data for papers published in this journal from 1987 to 2011 to examine how title features changed and whether a manuscript's title structure was predictive of success during the manuscript review process and/or impact (citation) after publication. Titles of manuscripts submitted to Functional Ecology …