News in brief and features in New Scientist magazine and the biomedical research papers that they cite, August 2008 to July 2009

Grant Lewison () and Thomas Turnbull ()
Additional contact information
Grant Lewison: University College London
Thomas Turnbull: Evaluametrics Ltd

Scientometrics, 2010, vol. 85, issue 1, No 25, 345-359

Abstract: Abstract New Scientist is a British weekly magazine that is half-way between a newspaper and a scientific journal. It has many news items, and also longer feature articles, both of which cite biomedical research papers, and thus serve to make them better known to the public and to the scientific community, mainly in the UK but about half overseas. An analysis of these research papers shows (in relation to their presence in the biomedical research literature) a strong bias towards the UK, and also one to the USA, Scandinavia and Ireland. There is a reasonable spread of subject areas, although neuroscience is favoured, and coverage of many journals—not just the leading weeklies. Most of the feature articles (but not the news items) in New Scientist include comments by other researchers, who can put the new results in context. Their opinions appear to be more discriminating than those of commentators on research in the mass media, who usually enthuse over the results while counselling patience before a cure for the disease is widely available.

Keywords: News stories; Health research; Cited papers; Popular science writing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11192-010-0221-9

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