Self-study
When scientific journals began to offer full online access to their articles in addition to the traditional printed volumes, scientists gained access to more journals and easier access to back issues. █████████████ ████ ███ ███ ████ ██ █ ███████ ███████ ██ ████████ █████ █████ ██ ███ ██████████ █████████ ████████ ██ ███ ██ █ ███████ ████████ █████ ██████████ ██ ████ ███ ████ ████████ ████ █████ ██████ ██████████ ██████
"Surprising" Phenomenon
Scientists began citing an even smaller group of sources once they had easier access to a larger group of sources.
Objective
The right answer will be a hypothesis that explains why scientists ended up using a narrower range of sources after getting access to a larger range of sources, rather than diversifying their sources. This explanation must account for some motivation to use fewer sources as a result of having more ability to access and sort through many sources.
13.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ ███████ █████████ ██████
a
A few of ███ ████ █████████████ ██████████ ████████ ████ █████ ███ █████ ██ █████ ████ ██████ ██████ ██ █████ █████████
Even if the most authoritative journals were among the first to offer online access, the stimulus states that the move online gave access to more journals overall. We need to know why scientists chose not to use these sources.
b
Scientists who wrote █ ███ ██ ████████ ████ ███ ████ ████████████ █████ █████████ ███████ ████████ ███████
If anything, this makes the outcome more surprising—if prolific authors are accessing journals online, why aren't they diversifying their sources? We still don't know.
c
Scientists are more ██████ ██ ████ ████████ ██ ██████████ ████ ████ ████ ████ ████ ███ ██ ████ ████████ ██ ██████████ ████ ████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ███ ██████ ███ ████ ██████████
If scientists generally cite people they know, then they probably aren’t citing the same articles as their peers at different institutions. Also, this doesn't explain what changed with online access.
d
Several new scientific ████████ ████████ ██ ███████ ███ ████ ████ ████ ████ ██████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██████ ████████████
The existence of new scientific journals doesn’t change much—if anything, it just means there are even more sources available. We don’t even know when these journals went online. This doesn't help us.
e
Online searching made ██ ██████ ███ ██████████ ██ ████████ ███ ████████ ████ ███████ ███ ████ ██████ ████████ █████ ██ ██ ██████ █████ ████ ██████ ██ █████
So scientists can specifically search for eminent articles to cite, rather than sifting through journals like they used to. This explains why there’s now less variety in the articles scientists choose to cite.