This dissonance Bolstering credibility in academic abstracts

Writing a convincing abstract requires the ability to demonstrate credibility through an adequate selection of keywords. A case in point is the selection of shell nouns determined by this. Based on a comparable interdisciplinary corpus of 400 PhD abstracts written in English by writers in an Anglophone and a Francophone context, the role of shell nouns determined by this is studied to (1) assess their impact on textual cohesion (2) evaluate the connection between the selected terms and the discipline's epistemological values as perceived by newcomers (3) consider the influence of the writer's linguistic origin on the handling of this device. This study aims to contribute to the assessment of the parameters which might undermine writers' credibility in their scientific community.