Still Not Significant

Linguistic gymnastics in the search for research impact

  1. Medical and health journals have a bias towards publishing findings which are statistically significant, even when they may not also be clinically relevant. This results in authors describing their non significant findings with creative language, to try and make them seem more interesting. Matthew Hankins (@mc_hankins) has Tweeted many, many examples of these verbal contortions, with his own wry comments. Storified by me @AnnieBruton.
  2. No.1 in a series of creative descriptions for non-significance:"slightly failed to reach statistical significance" http://pic.twitter.com/IcVGpiqFyK
  3. No.2 in a series of creative descriptions for non-significance: "better trends of improvement" http://pic.twitter.com/2WRRvCnf8n via @AnnieBruton
  4. No.3 in a series of creative descriptions of non-significance:"a strong trend toward significance (p=0.07)" http://pic.twitter.com/i0Q92Lk39S
  5. @mc_hankins @AnnieBruton I recently said, 'was outside the conventional significance level'...
  6. Failed, but only slightly: "slightly failed to reach statistical significance (p=0.061)" http://pic.twitter.com/IcVGpiqFyK #stillnotsignificant
  7. Not just a trend, a *better* trend: "better trends of improvement (p=0.056)" http://pic.twitter.com/2WRRvCnf8n via @AnnieBruton #stillnotsignificant
  8. Glass close to half full: "significant, or close to significant effects (p =0.08, p=0.05)" #stillnotsignificant http://pic.twitter.com/gDXUBgHfFE
  9. Desperate: "quite close to significance at the 10% level (p=0.104)" #stillnotsignificant http://pic.twitter.com/77Cx7sswjR
  10. There's 'nearly' not, and then there's 'very nearly' not: "very nearly significant (P=0.0656)" #stillnotsignificant http://pic.twitter.com/bCOhpDvqCx
  11. Honest in a roundabout way: "nearly, but not quite significant (P<0.06)" #stillnotsignificant http://pic.twitter.com/OSxB9zgfbV
  12. Interestingly, 'slight non-significance' and 'slight significance' express exactly the same thing, i.e. non-significance #stilnotsignificant
  13. Trending, precisely as much as this hashtag: "trending towards significant (p=0.099)" #stillnotsignificant http://pic.twitter.com/eUcwrTNUic
  14. Only three words in the following phrase are misleading:"trending towards significance" (P<0.15) #stillnotsignificant http://pic.twitter.com/TdvnWmB7fL
  15. Like the Curate's egg, it was significant in places: "partial significance (P<0.09)" #stillnotsignificant http://pic.twitter.com/SPzZAfLweX
  16. Taking it to the edge, but not actually beyond it: "at the edge of significance (P=0.055) #stillnotsignificant http://pic.twitter.com/o7WDRW44Lp

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