Quantitatively expressed ideas in lymphoma: text versus numerical displays

Area of Science:

• Scientific communication
• Information extraction
• Bibliometrics

Background:

• Quantitative ideas in scientific literature are presented in numerical displays (tables, graphs) and in the Results section text.
• Understanding the relative importance and accessibility of these formats is crucial for efficient scientific document processing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the importance and extractability of quantitative ideas presented in numerical displays versus text within scientific articles.
• To evaluate the added value of reading Results sections beyond information conveyed by tables and graphs.

Main Methods:

• A random sample of 50 lymphoma literature articles with numerical relationship displays was selected.
• Quantitative ideas were extracted from both numerical displays and text in the Results section.
• A database was created to categorize ideas based on their presentation format.

Main Results:

• Quantitative ideas expressed in text were more difficult to find and extract compared to those in numerical displays.
• Ideas from numerical displays were found to be more important than those presented solely in the text.
• Extracting quantitative ideas from numerical displays is a validated method for rapid technical processing.

Conclusions:

• Numerical displays (tables, graphs) are a more significant and accessible source of quantitative information in scientific articles.
• The method of extracting quantitative ideas from numerical displays is effective for efficient scientific document processing.