Neuroscience

Point of View: Beware ‘persuasive communication devices’ when writing and reading scientific articles

UCLouvain, Belgium
Access 2 Perspectives, Germany
University of Surrey, United Kingdom
Université Grenoble Alpes, France
Institut Universitaire de France, France
Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
KU Leuven, Belgium
Rutgers University, United States
University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
Université d’Angers, France
Université de Nantes, France
Lund University, Sweden
University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom
NHS Grampian, United Kingdom
Maseno University, Kenya
University of Sussex, United Kingdom
Research Center Jülich, Germany

May 25, 2023

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.88654

Open access
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1 table

Tables

Table 1

Persuasive communication devices.

	Device	Description
Category: Mischaracterizing the state-of-the-art
1	Ignoring previous work	Not citing previous work that decreases the perceived novelty of the current work.
2	One-sided citation	Mostly or only citing supportive research, and mostly or completely ignoring research that does not support the author’s point of view.
3	Reliance on weak evidence	Citing work that is now known to be weak or wrong.
4	Misleading use of references	Citing papers that are not relevant to the point the author is trying to make in order to give the impression that support for this point is stronger than it actually is.
5	Missing evidence	Making statements that are not backed up with citations.
Category: Overselling
6	Excessive titles	Using titles which make claims that go beyond the findings being reported.
7	Overgeneralization	Generalizing results beyond the population studied without evidence to support such claims.
8	Hype	Using adjectives such as striking, important, remarkable and so on without justification.
9	Selective reporting	Not reporting findings that would make the article ‘weaker‘; not reporting hypotheses that have been tested and ruled out.
10	Hypothesizing after the results are known (HARKing).	Giving the impression that a hypothesis was formulated before data were collected, when it was formulated after data collection.
Category: Smoke screening and deflection
11	Inconsistent terminology	Being inconsistent in the use of terminology across papers – and sometimes within a paper –in order to avoid scrutiny.
12	Selective quotation	Selectively quoting other work, or citing other work out of context, in order to make a point.
13	Straw-person argument	Exaggerating or distorting other work in order to easily refute it.
14	Cryptic writing	Writing in a way intended to make an article unnecessarily difficult for readers to understand in order to impress them and prevent a fair assessment of the work being reported.
15	(Supplementary) information overload	Overwhelming the reader with poorly organized supporting materials, if done to prevent close scrutiny.
16	Limiting what is said about limitations	Seeking to downplay or hide the limitations of a study.
17	Ambiguity	Using words which suggest more than what the study delivered.
18	Selective appeal for rigor	Requiring higher standards of evidence from researchers with a different or competing perspective.
19	Open research washing	Engaging in ‘open research‘ practices in a superficial manner in order to boost the perceived robustness of work.
Category: Misuse of authority (and authors)
20	Reliance on precedent	Suggesting that a procedure with known flaws is suitable for a study because it has been used in lots of previous studies.
21	Reliance on number of citations	Arguing that because previous work has received lots of citations, an area of research – and hence the current work – is important and of high quality.
22	Honorary authorship	Including a well-known researcher in the author list – even though they do not meet the relevant criteria for being an author – in order to increase the chances of the manuscript being accepted for publication.