On the makeup of high-impact reviews in ecology.

Abstract

To maximize the impact of our contributions, we strive to perfect our scientific writing. Much of the existing guidance on how to effectively structure reviews originates from anecdotal opinions and guidelines set out by the journals themselves. This makes it less clear what ultimately determines the number of citations of review papers. Citation frequencies partly depend on the topic of the review, and on the innovative nature of the ideas within the review. However, the language norms and the narrative flow within a review might also play an important role in the eventual acceptance of the ideas. Here, we analyzed the text of review papers published in 2020 in the top ten journals in ecology. Citation counts correlated with two of the four psychometrics tested, as well as the word count of the contributions, explaining an aggregate of 1.9% of total variation. We further observed relationships in citation counts with two descriptors of the article structure. We identify linguistic traits correlated with citation frequency in ecology, with potential relevance across other disciplines. A solid theoretical background on best practices in review writing would be transformative in terms of contributing to tools for further improving the impact of reviews, but also to assist their preliminary editorial evaluation.