Research
Christmas 2019: Sweet Little Lies
Gender differences in how scientists present the importance of their research: observational study
BMJ 2019; 367 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l6573 (Published 16 December 2019) Cite this as: BMJ 2019;367:l6573Linked Editorial
Gender differences in research reporting
How to Ensure Even Your Least Meaningful Findings Get All The Attention They Deserve: A Tutorial For the Timid
In the recent BMJ Christmas issue (1) and a New York Times op-ed (2), Lerchenmueller, Sorenson and Jena (LSJ) courageously alerted both the scientific community and the general public to the scourge of toxic male academic self-promotion. Some readers, however, may not have fully appreciated the degree to which – in reporting their own findings – the three men elevated this to a high art form.
In the spirit of the Christmas issue, we offer a simple Tutorial (https://bit.ly/3awqulV) below based (loosely) on their methods, so that even female researchers—unfairly hamstrung by the constraints of “scientific integrity” and testicular insufficiency—can ensure that even their most meagre results totally crush the Altimetrics scale.
Less virile practitioners than LSJ may have been deterred when they found that approximately 90% of papers by both sexes did not use any of the 25 designated ‘positive’ words in their titles or abstract, or concluded that the small ~1% absolute risk difference (the appropriate scale to evaluate the potential impact) cannot possibly have a meaningful effect on gender differences in citations or academic promotions. More effete researchers might cautiously have paused to consider the many unmeasured sources of confounding that could account for the minimal residual differences after adjustment in this observational study, or hesitated at the problematic credibility of subgroup analysis (3).
Undaunted by these trivialities, LSJ offer a compelling ‘data point’ of male scientific peacocking that we find wholly persuasive (irrespective of their results)—and instructive. We are ‘hopeful’ that our ‘novel’ and ‘robust’ tutorial serves as an ‘excellent’ example for others to emulate our ‘unique’ approach.
You’re welcome!
David M. Kent, MD, MS 1,2
Jessica K. Paulus, ScD 1,2
H. Gilbert Welch, MD, MPH 3
1 Predictive Analytics and Comparative Effectiveness (PACE) Center, Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies (ICRHPS), Tufts Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA
2 Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
3 Center for Surgery and Public Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
References
1. Lerchenmueller MJ, Sorenson O, Jena AB. Gender differences in how scientists present the importance of their research: observational study. BMJ (Clinical research ed) 2019;367:I6573. doi: 10.1136/bmj.l6573
2. Jena AB, Lerchenmueller MJ, Sorenson O. When Men Praise Their Own Research. The New York Times 2019 Dec 18.
3. Burke JF, Sussman JB, Kent DM, et al. Three simple rules to ensure reasonably credible subgroup analyses. BMJ (Clinical research ed) 2015;351:h5651. doi: 10.1136/bmj.h5651
Competing interests: No competing interests