Scientific papers: Authorship and objectivity in Russian and English research texts (a case-study of journals on mining and metallurgy)

In the modern world, a scientific article is the most important result of research activity and a tool for evaluating a scholar's work.Moreover, the article should not only contain significant research achievements and findings, it should also meet certain requirements for the text structure and presentation.The text should be written in an accessible, clear and convincing manner.The combination of these elements determines the citation indicators of a scholar's article.Our paper focuses on one of the components, namely the manner of presentation.We address the rhetorical and linguistic aspects of scientific communication, which allow presenting research findings in a reasonable and objective manner.The paper considers some external factors affecting a modern scientific text, the reasons behind the dominance of an English scientific tradition of research paper writing, and some internal components of technical scientific discourse that determine the sociocultural differences between English and Russian traditions of presenting research findings.Thus, the article analyses the parameters of authorship and objectivity in research papers on the mining industry written by English-speaking and Russian-speaking scholars.The linguistic methods of text analysis enabled to reveal that contemporary Russian technical texts tend to hide the authorial presence.The English scientific tradition, to the contrary, is characterized, on the one hand, by a high degree of individualism, and on the other, by its dialogic approach, interactivity and reader targeting.The Russian manner of writing technical research articles is largely collectivist with practically no self-references.This collectivist manner also refers to the approach to citing the works of colleagues and assessing their contribution to science.