Publication Guidelines and the Use of Qualitative versus Quantitative Data in the Reporting of Research in Elsevier’s Animal Behaviour

Many journals provide guidelines for their publications, which outline the expectations for authors when submitting an article for publication. Although these guidelines have become common practice for some journals, there is little written regarding the impact that these guidelines have on the reporting of research. This paper aims to provide insight regarding the question of “How do journal guidelines address the reporting of data in scientific journals?” This study does not measure the impact that guidelines have had on the reporting of research and instead aims to use the established methodology of document analysis to develop a new instrument for helping understand how and whether publication guidelines impact the reporting of data. The work conducted to develop this methodology involved analysis of the language used in publication guidelines and its potential impact on the use of qualitative versus quantitative data in the reporting of animal behavior research. The topic was chosen as animal behavior research often requires the use of both quantitative and qualitative observations when reporting. In this study, we examined the differences in publication guidelines outlined by the Elsevier’s Animal Behaviour between the years 1960 and 2019, to identify any potential influence of the journal’s publication guidelines on the reporting of scientific research in Animal Behaviour. This study highlights three emerging themes (data presentation, types of research topics and paper types) and identifies supporting language in the guidelines that address the use of qualitative and quantitative terms in the reporting of scientific research.