Picture:
Responses to each sentence in the importance/significance dimension as kernel density distributions, with the 25th, 50th (i.e., median), and 75th quantiles represented by black vertical lines and the 25th–75th quantile range (i.e., interquartile range) highlighted in blue.
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Image credit: Hardwicke TE et al., 2024, PLOS Biology, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Research articles published by eLife are accompanied by statements that use predetermined wording to assess the importance and strength of support. This study used an online repeated measures experiment to determine whether the eLife formulas were interpreted as intended. It found that most participants’ implicit rankings did not match the intended rankings.
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Please use this URL in your reporting to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Biology: http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002645
Article title: An empirical evaluation of eLife’s evaluation vocabulary
Author countries: Australia
Financing: This study was supported by grants awarded to SV and TEH from the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Research method
Experimental study
Research subject
People
COI Statement
Conflicts of interest: SV is a member of the Board of Directors of the Public Library of Science (PLOS). This role has in no way influenced the outcome or development of this work or the peer review process, nor does it change our adherence to the PLOS Biology guidelines for sharing data and materials. All other authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
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