Male scientists are more likely than female colleagues to positively frame their research 

Men’s historical overconfidence — and women’s shortage of confidence — may extend to the way they describe their scientific work, according to new research. An analysis of more than 100,000 life sciences papers published between 2002 and 2017 finds that men are about 12% more likely to positively describe their work using words like “novel” and “excellent” in abstracts than their female colleagues. When it came to papers published in top-tier journals, that difference grew to more than 20%. Such differences could have ripple effects beyond the pages of a journal: How one’s papers are framed could influence citations by others, and such citations count toward other factors such as research funding, promotions, and salary. One caveat: Researchers only looked at published abstracts, so it’s possible some of these differences emerged during editing and peer review of articles.