Grasping the structure of journal articles: Utilizing the functions of information units

Lei Zhang

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2012, vol. 63, issue 3, 469-480

Abstract: Few studies have been done concerning document components and their effects on information use. This research empirically tested a taxonomy of functional units in a prototype journal system. This taxonomy was developed by identifying functions of the smallest information units within four journal article components (i.e., introduction, methods, results, discussion), and their associations with information tasks of using journal articles. Experimental results show that functional units can be utilized in supporting navigation, close reading, comprehension, and information use of journal articles to various extents. The results provide evidence that an individual functional unit has varying relevance to information use tasks, and has varying relevance to other functional units in the same or another component for a particular task. This research suggests that the information within a journal article can be organized and presented by functions to enhance effectiveness and efficiency in reading process and reading outcome.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.21680

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jamist:v:63:y:2012:i:3:p:469-480

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1532-2890

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology from Association for Information Science & Technology
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().