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Textual analysis and the history of scholarly communication
Author(s) -
Martin Shawn
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
proceedings of the association for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.193
H-Index - 14
ISSN - 2373-9231
DOI - 10.1002/pra2.2017.14505401143
Subject(s) - professionalization , order (exchange) , statistical analysis , content analysis , professional association , library science , sociology , social science , political science , engineering ethics , history , public relations , computer science , engineering , mathematics , statistics , finance , economics
This paper uses topic modeling and statistical analysis of keywords within early American scientific journals in order to better understand the professionalization of American science in the late 19 th century. The Journal of the American Chemical Society was one of the first professional scientific journals developed in the United States and analyzing its content may help to understand the professional concerns of 19 th century American scientists. How did these early scientists view their profession? What did chemists see as the most important scientific issues of their time? By using computational and statistical analysis of the first 40 years (1879–1922) of the journal, it becomes clear that the professionalization of chemistry took roughly 20 years and had much to do with external factors affecting science in the United States.