How we say things can be as important as what we say. In this post, Ella Whiteley explores the “framing effect”, its implications for education and research communication and in particular, its salience to discussions of sex and gender.
Drawing on their recent analysis of journals in the field of Higher Education Studies, which shows that journals with lower impact rankings are more likely to feature research from diverse geographic and linguistic contexts,Shannon MasonandMargaret K. Merga argue that researchers should adopt more careful citation practices, as a means to broaden and contextualise what counts as ‘prestigious’ research and create a more equitable publishing environment for research outside of core anglophone countries.
The global health emergency caused by the outbreak of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, known colloquially as COVID19, since late 2019 has resulted in calls for COVID19-related topics to be prioritised in research to inform the public health response to the pandemic. Acting on the urgent need for research (and to some extent, social responsibility), many leading cross-disciplinary journals have offered publication fee waivers for research papers covering a COVID19-related topic in any field, including but not limited to chemistry, biology, medicine, economics, and psychology. Further, in many (if not all) of these cases, the open-access fee additional to the cost of publication is also relinquished.