Research Articles From Plos Biology: A Textual Data Analysis
Résumé
Many research articles in experimental sciences present a standardized form known as the “IMRaD format”, an acronym for Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion. Linguists have pointed out that each section serves a specific rhetorical function. This article aims at exploring the relation between linguistic features and the rhetorical function of each section. We studied 966 research articles from the journal Plos Biology. Topic modelling and correspondence analysis highlighted linguistic features associated with the rhetorical function of each section. However, lexical diversity revealed some features that point out a change in the rhetorical function traditionally associated with Methods sections, because Plos Biology uses a slightly modified IMRaD format, in which Methods sections are at the end of articles.