Lillian Sholes, daughter of Christopher Sholes, who invented the first successful typewriter, was one of the first typists, 1872
There are notable gaps among men and women in scientific writing, publication, and citation patterns which can have negative consequences for women in academia, especially in certain STEM fields. Publication records, particularly in prestigious journals, play a key role in hiring and tenure decisions after the graduate school stage.
While women have increased their percentage from 12% of active authors in 1955 to 35% in 2005 globally, there were stark differences by field (i.e., math (15%) v. psychology (33%)) (Huang et al. 2020). The gender gap in impact (frequency of citation) and productivity (frequency of publication) rose from the 1950s (10%) to the 2000s (35%). On average, male scientists published 13.2 papers and women 9.6 and received 30% more citations than female scientists. Furthermore, men are 10 times more likely to self-cite than woman (King et al. 2017).
West et al. examined the JSTOR database for gender composition in authorships between 1990-2011 and found that there were many differences between fields. For example, 10.64% of female authorships were in mathematics, 22.75% in ecology and evolution, and 46.35% in education (West et al. 2013). Shen et al. examined the proportion of female first and last authors in high-profile neuroscience journals between 2005 and 2017 (Shen et al. 2018). Using data-mining techniques, they found that the highest percentage of female last or first authors (the most prestigious positions) was in Neuropsychology Review (39.04%, and 52.58%) and lowest in Nature (14.64% and 25.22%). There was a strong negative correlation between journal impact factor and female first and last authors.
In the Royal Society of Chemistry journals, female authors are cited less than male authors.
There are several explanations for these gaps. For example, countries in which there are gaps between men and women in faculty career lengths also have gaps in productivity (Huang et al. 2020). Lesser research funding, fewer women in prestigious fields and prestigious institutions, and fewer women advancing to higher ranks in academia are reasons for these gaps. Another study examined data from the 1993 National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics, which covered 947 randomly selected private and public postsecondary institutions and then 14,614 faculty members (59% male, 41% female, 80% white, 9% black, 5% Latino, and 5% Asian, 73% married) (Bellas and Toutkoushian 1999). They examined time spent on teaching, service, and research broken down by race, gender and marital status. Male faculty devoted 6% more time on research than women, and men ultimately had higher research output than women. Generally, faculty who devoted more time to teaching or service activities had lower research output. Black and Latino faculty also spent greater amount of time on service activities. Likely, these groups are being overburdened with service and teaching duties, as opposed to “choosing’’ them over research.
Even more difficult to combat is implicit bias in the peer-review process that can prevent publication and citations. Multiple studies have indicated that authors with “prestigious” affiliations are more likely to be accepted for publication regardless of journal type. In single-blind review processes, where reviewers are aware of the author names and affiliations, papers submitted to Computing Machinery International Conference were more likely to be recommended for acceptance from prestigious authors, universities, or companies (Tomkins, Zhang, and Heavlin 2017).
In another study, the “friendship” bonus for being affiliated with the reviewer was found with neuroscience manuscripts submitted to PLOS ONE from 2011-2012 (Teplitskiy et al. 2018). This study found that there was a bonus (0.11) point “friendship” bonus (on a 4-point scale) for authors who had proximity to the reviewer. In 1982, Peters and Ceci re-submitted 12 high-impact published research articles whose original authors were from prestigious institutions, under fictious names and institutions (Peters and Ceci 1982). Eight out of nine articles that were selected for peer review were rejected (only 3 were detected as plagiarism). There appeared to be response bias in favor of the original authors due to their prestigious affiliations (p. 192).
LEFT: Readability scores of first-authored female authored papers upon journal submission are higher than male-authored papers RIGHT: Papers with all female authors face longer peep-review times at Econometrica.
Concerningly, female STEM doctorial students commonly leave graduate school with fewer publications than their male counterparts, despite providing equitable or more research contributions than their male counterparts (Feldon et al. 2017 ; Fox 2001 ; Pezzoni et al. 2016). The consequences of the “publication” gap can be dire at early stages of an academic career.
What Faculty Really Think of Grad Students Writing
Female grad students with female advisors (light orange) are more likely to publish than all female grad students (dark orange) across these STEM disciplines. The baseline is male grad students with male advisors.
Furthermore, STEM faculty tend to have an overwhelmingly negative attitude towards student writing. During her time as a writing instructor at Michigan Technical University, critically acclimated writer Roxane Gay observed that engineering faculty critiques of student writing were insulting or focused on disciplinary expectations rather than actually critiquing the writing itself (Gay 2010). For decades, it has been conceded by faculty and professionals that written and oral communication skills were required for the education of the “well-rounded” engineer, but that there has been little attempt to guide or elucidate this process (Gay 2010) (as an undergraduate engineering student I can attest that I received 0 instruction on how to write academic manuscripts and had no engineering writing courses). There is not much consensus on what is “good” writing. In some sense, it may be focused on grammar, sentence structure, and sound prose, in others it may be well-organized writing, stylistically appropriate for the purpose and audience.
Her survey contained 83 student respondents at Michigan Technical University who were a mix of race, gender, disciplines (mainly engineering) and socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as mix of different undergraduate years (Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior) (Gay 2010). There were 247 faculty responses from a range of different colleges and universities, ranks, and disciplines. Results revealed that student respondents were regular writers in professional, social, creative, and classroom contexts.
About 77.2% of engineering majors were confident in their writing ability versus 72.2% of non-engineering majors, which contradicted anecdotal lore about engineering students as insecure writers. Student writing confidence also increased with each year of schooling. The majority of students largely reported enjoyment in writing with more engineering students enjoyed writing than non-engineering students. Students largely agreed that writing came easily to them, with engineering and non-engineering majors indicating similar levels of agreement. This also contradicts lore that engineering students find writing difficult. The majority of students also reported receiving positive feedback on their writing. Generally, engineering respondents reported receiving more positive feedback on their writing than non-engineering respondents. The majority of students reported that they were confident that their teachers perceived them to be good writers.
Faculty responses paint a different picture. The majority of engineering faculty respondents (70%) reported giving positive feedback, though at a lower percentage than reported by engineering students (90%) (pp. 168-169). However, only 49.5% of engineering faculty agreed that students were inherently capable of good writing (p. 171). Only 9.9% of engineering that faculty indicated that they agree that students write well (p. 172). This is a large disconnect between faculty feedback and their actual beliefs in student writing (p. 173). Faculty also expressed little confidence that students were prepared to write in their professional life.
Additionally, most 61.2% of faculty agreed that student writing didn’t meet their “standards” (pp. 176-177). Gay notes that this data corroborates the anecdotal negative attitude of faculty towards student writing (p. 177). Gay further examines how the actions of such faculty contribute to this negative culture about student writing. Most faculty agreed that they discussed student writing in faculty meetings or other official academic meetings. There was less than 30% agreement among engineering faculty with the statement that “When my colleagues and I discuss student writing our statements are generally positive.” (p. 183). Gay argues that the faculty are normalizing a climate where negative attitudes towards student writing flourish.
Gay’s study is illuminating and may indicate why graduate students face obstacles publishing. The deep belief that student writing is “bad” among faculty can translate to graduate student writers as well. However, many faculty seem to be unable to provide true constructive feedback and advice for improving writing and rather resort to vaguely positive platitudes and delays. Additionally, many writing criteria may be based on the individual standards of the faculty member. Since graduating undergraduates exhibited high writing confidence levels in Gay’s report, the new graduate student may believe they are a capable writer. However, as time progresses, they will face mixed messages from faculty mentors, resulting in frustration and self-doubt. Ultimately, it may take longer for the article to be completed and submitted to the journal and eventually published.
Improvement
There are several recommendations for encouraging scholarly writing among female students. Namely, scholarly writing and research should be the central focus of graduate education with mentors/departments providing consistent and strong expectations in these areas.
This includes providing consistent feedback and encouragement to publish, involving students in the review of current manuscripts, encouraging female students to seek research collaborations, encouraging female students to present their research in public forums, encouraging the development of graduate peer networks on campus, and developing assignments that introduce students to different forms of scholarly writing. This focused mentoring with writing can help reduce writing anxiety, which can be more prominent in female graduate students (Huerta et al. 2017).
Mentors should also recognize that women have reported feeling marginalized in their research group, with other male members receiving more assistance with research and writing (Fox 2001). For female graduate students of color, social pressures, negative stereotypes, and tokenism are additional barriers which white faculty members may not be equipped to effectively mentor (Thomas, Willis, and Davis 2007).
Extracurricular groups, networking and mentoring programs, and anti-harassment policies are additional ways to improve the departmental climate for graduate students.
Specifically, hiring more female faculty can also increase graduate student productivity. For example, both male and female graduate students are more likely to publish more with female mentors (Pezzoni et al. 2016).
Journal-level changes, like the institution of double or triple-blind peer review and increasing diversity among editors and reviewers for academic journals can encourage publication (Pinholster 2016). Journals could additionally be more transparent on gender and minority submission statistics and acceptance rates (Shen et al. 2018).
Truths
Female authored studies are more likely to be rejected from scientific journals despite having comparable or even better writing quality.
“Friendship bonus” in peer review is a real thing.
Most grad students go into grad school thinking they are good writers.
Most faculty believe that grad students ‘can’t write’. Yet, most grad students, especially in STEM, don’t receive education/instruction on academic writing.
omg i can't even imagine how much time all this research must've taken you! loved it!