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The T ext M atrix as a tool to increase the cohesion of extensive texts
Author(s) -
De Sordi José Osvaldo,
Meireles Manuel,
Oliveira Osvaldo Luiz
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of the association for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.903
H-Index - 145
eISSN - 2330-1643
pISSN - 2330-1635
DOI - 10.1002/asi.23434
Subject(s) - cohesion (chemistry) , computer science , combinatorics , mathematics , chemistry , organic chemistry
The significant amount of time needed to prepare concise and cohesive texts is among the reasons why extensive texts proliferate in organizations. Extensive documents are more likely to have low cohesion among their various sections, which may lead the reader to perceive the information as being of low quality. This research addresses this issue by presenting a tool ( T ext M atrix) composed of procedures and algorithms coded in software, with the aim of analyzing cohesion between the text sections in extensive documents. A design science research approach was applied to develop, test, and prove the usefulness of the T ext M atrix. A total of 127 academic advisors and advisees were trained to use the T ext M atrix and apply it in the development of the extensive text of dissertations. An analysis both of those users' perceptions and of variations in network density among 41 extensive texts that they improved through the analyses performed by the artifact proposed in the present study demonstrated the ease of operation and effectiveness of the T ext M atrix to identify parts of extensive texts associated with cohesion failures that could be connected by cohesion devices or even excluded from the extensive text.