Paper
Changes in Manuscript Length, Research Team Size, and International Collaboration in the Post-2022 Period: Evidence from PLOS ONE
Authors
Yossi Ben-Zion, Eden Cohen, Nitza Davidovitch
Abstract
Large language models (LLMs) have diffused rapidly into academic writing since late 2022. Using the complete population of 109,393 research articles published in \textit{PLOS ONE} between 2019 and 2025, we examine population-level structural publication indicators, including full-text manuscript length, authorship team size, reference volume, and cross-linguistic collaboration, before and after 2022. \textit{PLOS ONE}'s multidisciplinary scope and consistent editorial framework allow cross-field comparison under uniform conditions over an extended period. Manuscript length increased substantially, with gains ranging from 14.8\% among African-affiliated authors and 11.7\% among Asian-affiliated authors to 5.3\% among native English-speaking (NES) authors, cutting the word-count gap by 39\%. More strikingly, non-native English-speaking (NNES) authors reduced both authorship team size, from 6.54 to 6.06 authors, or 7.3\%, and collaboration with NES co-authors, from 17.8\% to 12.2\%, or 36\%, while NES authors remained stable in both team size and collaboration rates. Reference counts increased modestly and uniformly across groups. These findings suggest that post-2022 tools may be reshaping not only how science is written, but who writes it together.
Metadata
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Raw Data (Debug)
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"raw_xml": "<entry>\n <id>http://arxiv.org/abs/2603.01718v1</id>\n <title>Changes in Manuscript Length, Research Team Size, and International Collaboration in the Post-2022 Period: Evidence from PLOS ONE</title>\n <updated>2026-03-02T10:42:23Z</updated>\n <link href='https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.01718v1' rel='alternate' type='text/html'/>\n <link href='https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.01718v1' rel='related' title='pdf' type='application/pdf'/>\n <summary>Large language models (LLMs) have diffused rapidly into academic writing since late 2022. Using the complete population of 109,393 research articles published in \\textit{PLOS ONE} between 2019 and 2025, we examine population-level structural publication indicators, including full-text manuscript length, authorship team size, reference volume, and cross-linguistic collaboration, before and after 2022. \\textit{PLOS ONE}'s multidisciplinary scope and consistent editorial framework allow cross-field comparison under uniform conditions over an extended period. Manuscript length increased substantially, with gains ranging from 14.8\\% among African-affiliated authors and 11.7\\% among Asian-affiliated authors to 5.3\\% among native English-speaking (NES) authors, cutting the word-count gap by 39\\%. More strikingly, non-native English-speaking (NNES) authors reduced both authorship team size, from 6.54 to 6.06 authors, or 7.3\\%, and collaboration with NES co-authors, from 17.8\\% to 12.2\\%, or 36\\%, while NES authors remained stable in both team size and collaboration rates. Reference counts increased modestly and uniformly across groups. These findings suggest that post-2022 tools may be reshaping not only how science is written, but who writes it together.</summary>\n <category scheme='http://arxiv.org/schemas/atom' term='cs.DL'/>\n <published>2026-03-02T10:42:23Z</published>\n <arxiv:primary_category term='cs.DL'/>\n <author>\n <name>Yossi Ben-Zion</name>\n <arxiv:affiliation>Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel</arxiv:affiliation>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Eden Cohen</name>\n <arxiv:affiliation>Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel</arxiv:affiliation>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Nitza Davidovitch</name>\n <arxiv:affiliation>Ariel University, Ariel, Israel</arxiv:affiliation>\n </author>\n </entry>"
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