  A growing stream of research finds that scientific contributions are
evaluated differently depending on the gender of the author. In this article,
we consider whether gender differences in writing styles - how men and women
communicate their work - may contribute to these observed gender gaps. We
ground our investigation in a framework for characterizing the linguistic style
of written text, with two sets of features - informational (i.e., features that
emphasize facts) and involved (i.e., features that emphasize relationships).
Using a large sample of academic papers and patents, we find significant
differences in writing style by gender, with women using more involved features
in their writing. Papers and patents with more involved features also tend to
be cited more by women. Our findings suggest that scientific text is not devoid
of personal character, which could contribute to bias in evaluation, thereby
compromising the norm of universalism as a foundational principle of science.
