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Cited by 46Discourse Analysis in Language StudiesAcademic Writing and Publishingscientometrics and bibliometrics research

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 54 of the 56 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Acknowledgements are not just thank you notes: A qualitative analysis of acknowledgements content in scientific articles and reviews published in 2015

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Paul-Hus, Adèle, Desrochers, Nadine·2019·PLOS ONE
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0226727PMC PMC6922370
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Abstract

Acknowledgements in scientific articles can be described as miscellaneous, their content ranging from pre-formulated financial disclosure statements to personal testimonies of gratitude. To improve understanding of the context and various uses of expressions found in acknowledgements, this study analyses their content qualitatively. The most frequent noun phrases from a Web of Science acknowledgements corpus were analysed to generate 13 categories. When 3,754 acknowledgement sentences were manually coded into the categories, three distinct axes emerged: the contributions, the disclaimers, and the authorial voice. Acknowledgements constitute a space where authors can detail the division of labour within collaborators of a research project. Results also show the importance of disclaimers as part of the current scholarly communication apparatus, an aspect which was not highlighted by previous analyses and typologies of acknowledgements. Alongside formal disclaimers and acknowledgements of various contributions, there seems to remain a need for a more personal space where the authors can speak for themselves, in their own name, on matters they judge worth mentioning.

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Research works printed but not linked: 9

  1. Forzetting SA. Personal, Peer, Patron: Scholarly Interactions with Librarians and Archivists in the Acknowledgements of Women’s History Book. 2010. [Master’s thesis] University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved from https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/
  2. Jeschin D, Lewison G, Anderson J. A bibliometric database for tracking acknowledgements of research funding. In: Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics. 1995. p. 235–44.
  3. S Gesuato, 2004, Lingua inglese e mediazione linguistica Ricerca e didattica con supporto telematico, 273
  4. Mackintosh SH. Acknowledgment patterns in sociology [Doctoral dissertation]. 1972. Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. (7228159)
  5. Innes J. Scholarly communication and knowledge management in American zoos [Doctoral dissertation]. [Ann Arbor]: Nova Southeastern University; 2006. Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. (3234986)
  6. G Dawson, 1998, Mapping the landscape: National biomedical research outputs 1988–95
  7. DS Giannoni, 1998, The genre of journal acknowledgments: Findings of a cross-disciplinary investigation, Linguist E Filol, 6, 61
  8. K Krippendorff, 2004, Reliability in Content Analysis, Hum Commun Res, 30, 411
  9. Clarivate Analytics, 2019, LibGuides: Web of Science Core Collection: Who’s funding MY research?

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Metadata

Authors
Paul-Hus, A., & Desrochers, N.
Affiliations
Université de Montréal (CA)
Corresponding author
Desrochers, Nadine
ORCID
Paul-Hus, Adèle
Venue
PLOS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Published
2019-12-19
Volume
14
Issue
12
Pages
e0226727
ISSN
1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0226727
PMC
PMC6922370
OpenAlex
W2996436809
Cited by
46
References
56
Citations by year
2026: 8 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 2
Type
paratext
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Doctoral Scholarships, 430-2014-0617)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Linguistics and Language › Discourse Analysis in Language Studies
  • Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › Academic Writing and Publishing
  • Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
Keywords
acknowledgment, scientific articles, disclaimers, authorial voice, scientific contributions, financial disclosure, scholarly communication, authorship, research collaboration
MeSH terms
Authorship, Cooperative Behavior, Ethics, Professional, Humans, Peer Review, Periodicals as Topic, Conflict of Interest, Disclosure, Information Dissemination, Biomedical Research

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