A large-scale multi-disciplinary analysis of uncertainty in research articles

Scientific uncertainty is inherent to the research process and to the production of new knowledge. In this paper, we present a large-scale analysis of how scientific uncertainty is expressed in research articles. To perform this study, we analyze the Const-L dataset, which consists in 31,849 research articles across 16 disciplines published over more than two decades. To identify and categorize uncertainty expressions, we employ the UnScientify annotation system, a linguistically informed, rule-based approach. We examine the distribution of uncertainty across disciplines, over time, and within the structure of articles, and we analyze its contexts and objects. The results show that the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) tend to have a higher frequency of uncertainty expressions than other fields. Overall, uncertainty tends to decrease over time, though this trend varies across disciplines. Moreover, correlations can be observed between the uncertainty expressions and both article structure and length. Finally, our findings provide new insights into scientific communication, by indicating distinctive disciplinary patterns in the ways uncertainty is expressed, as well as shared and field-specific research objects associated with uncertainty. • We identify sentences that express scientific uncertainty in articles, using a rule-based approach called UnScientify. • We analyze the disciplinary and temporal distributions of scientific uncertainty in publications. • We process the Const-L dataset, which contains the full text content of 31,849 articles published between 2000 and 2021 across 16 different disciplines. • Linguistic analysis of uncertainty-related nouns reveals research objects associated with uncertainty in different disciplines, providing insights into scientific communication practices.