Discipline

Studies have found significant differences between disciplines in publishing practices. Individual disciplines have created their own ways to communicate. In general, in the medical and natural sciences, journal-orientation is strongest (e.g., Piro et al. 2013; Puuska & Miettinen 2008; Kyvik 1991). Piro (2013) and colleagues studied academic publishing practices in all major disciplines in 2005–2008, with data collected from a Norwegian database covering all academic publications by researchers working at four Norwegian universities. The dataset contains almost 60,000 academic publications such as journal articles, book chapters, books, and conference papers. According to their study, 90% of publications in medicine and the natural sciences were journal articles. Also in the technical sciences, 70% of publications were journal articles. In the social sciences and humanities, the share of journal articles was 49% and 39%, respectively.

The tradition of publishing at conferences is strongest in technology fields (Puuska 2010; Piro et al. 2013; Puuska & Miettinen 2008; Kyvik 1991).

Conferences have different roles in different disciplines. In technology-oriented

disciplines, conference papers are usually treated as a significant form of publications. In other fields, conferences may be places for developing research ideas and papers. In technical sciences, researchers may publish new, improved versions of journal articles in conference proceedings. In contrast, in the natural sciences it is journals that are the primary forum for publication, and most respected journals do not even publish extended versions of articles (Kling &

McKim 1999).

The tradition of publishing book chapter and books is strongest in the humanities and social sciences (Puuska 2010; Piro et al. 2013; Puuska & Miettinen 2008; Kyvik 1991). According to the study by Piro and colleagues (2013), a third of the publications in the humanities and social sciences were articles in books and a fifth were academic monographs. In other disciplines, book articles and monographs were considerably less common (Piro et al. 2013). The role of books varies from one discipline to the next. In the natural sciences and medicine, books are seen as summing up the current state of knowledge in the field. In the humanities and social sciences, books are more often written because of the lack of codified language. Explaining research settings, methods, and the right interpretation takes many pages. Also, the pace of development in these fields is not so quick, and there is usually no competition for priority. In addition, if publication is intended to go beyond an academic audience, publications have to be more comprehensive (Kyvik 1991, 71–72).

Studies have also attempted to compare publishing activity between disciplines (Piro et al. 2013; Puuska 2010; Puuska & Miettinen 2008; Kyvik 1991). Comparing activity between disciplines has proved to be very difficult, because of the publishing practices characteristic to each field. One cannot compare the work demanded by writing journal article and that required for a monograph. As a solution to this problem, many studies have used ‘article equivalents’. Typically, a monograph has been counted as worth four to five journal articles (Puuska &

Miettinen 2008; Puuska 2010; Kyvik 1991).

There are also differences in the number of authors of publications. In general, articles in journals and conference papers are more commonly written by a group while monographs are often written alone (Puuska & Miettinen 2008). Disciplines differ in their practices related to co-authoring. Most of the publications in the natural sciences, medical sciences, and technology are co-authored, while in the humanities and social sciences the situation is the opposite (Kyvik 1991; Puuska &

Miettinen 2008). In the so-called hard sciences, experimental research work requires expertise in multiple specialities, so working alone is not necessarily

possible in the way it is in the humanities and social sciences. In fields that require expensive equipment, collaboration for sharing expenses is needed. There is also variation between disciplines in who is included in the authors of a publication. In some cases in the natural and technical sciences and in medicine, the whole research group, project managers, and supervisors may be automatically added as authors while in the humanities and social sciences all of the authors usually participate in the actual writing process (Puuska & Miettinen 2008). However, it has been shown that the number of authors has increased also in the humanities and social sciences, and the death of the ‘sole author’ practice as predicted by Lotka (1962) a full 50 years ago seems to be taking place (e.g. Kyvik 2003; Puuska

& Miettinen 2008; Liu 2003). In any case, the work demanded by writing a journal article alone and with 10 co-authors is not comparable. Therefore, techniques such as ‘fractionalisation’ have been created. This refers to a number of publications wherein the weight of each article is determined by division by the number of authors. Both article equivalents and fractionalising have produced varying results (Piro et al. 2013), and the problem remains without a good solution.

Regardless of the problems, different studies have come to similar conclusions.

If bare publication counts are used, researchers in medical fields and natural sciences are the most productive, followed by those in technology, the social sciences, and the humanities (e.g., Piro et al. 2013; Puuska 2010). However, when co-authoring patterns are taken into account via fractionalisation (dividing the number of publications by the number of authors), social scientists turn out to be the most productive (Piro et al. 2013; Puuska 2010). Using article equivalents produces a similar result (Kyvik 1991).

Professional publishing activity too varies between disciplines. According to the study by Puuska and Miettinen (2008), publishing for a professional audience is most typical in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Approximately one fifth of all publications in these fields were for professional audiences.

Kyvik (2005) studied publishing for more general audiences in various disciplines at a Norwegian university, using two surveys. According to Kyvik (2005), publishing for a public audience was most commonplace in the humanities and social sciences. From 1998 to 2000, the humanities and social sciences researchers published, on average, more than two popular articles each. Publishing for the general public was least common in fields in the natural sciences and technology. In the humanities and social sciences, research topics are usually more interesting for general audiences than those studied in other fields. Also, differences in reward systems may explain the divergences. Whitley (1984) has

argued that humanists and social scientists may gain reputation value from general audiences and, therefore, are less dependent on specialist colleagues than are researchers in sciences or technology. However, in all disciplines, academic publishing is seen as more important than popular publishing (Kyvik 2005).

Studies have also noticed differences in publishing practices between research fields within disciplines (Kyvik 1991; Piro 2013; Puuska & Miettinen 2008).

Research fields and even areas of specialisation within disciplines may have their own communication practices. According to Piro and colleagues (2013), the greatest differences between sub-fields in terms of number of publications were found in the natural sciences. However, according to Kyvik (1991) and Puuska and Miettinen (2008), the greatest variation between research fields was seen in the social sciences and the least in the natural sciences. Puuska and Miettinen (2008) found that writing of monographs and book chapters varied between fields. Also, publishing for national and international and academic and professional audiences varied. For example, publishing practices in biology, agriculture, and forestry differed from those in other natural sciences and the patterns were closer to those in the social sciences. In these fields, publishing for national audiences was also more common than in other natural sciences. In addition, publishing cultures in technical sciences could be divided into two categories: national and international.

Those fields whose audience was mainly national industry published mainly in national forums. Fields wherein the main audience was international researchers published more in international forums. Puuska and Miettinen (2008) discovered also that in the social sciences and humanities publishing practices varied greatly between research fields. Most fields used many, quite different publishing forums regularly. Results were published in edited works, national and international journals, monographs, and conference proceedings, and researchers published regularly for professional and public audiences. Also, the number of co-authors varied considerably between research fields (Puuska & Miettinen 2008).