Fundamentally, science is about people. The stories of the people behind the science are just as important as the results themselves, even though the results are often what get more attention. Despite the growth of databases storing such stories across diverse mediums, a detailed assessment of those databases is missing. To continue innovating science storytelling, we provide the first assessment of the structure and diversity of the narratives published in the Journal of Stories in Science. In this assessment, a total of 170 published stories authored by 158 authors between 2016 and 2020 are analyzed. Majority (67%) of the authors are women from North America and in the life sciences. The narratives most commonly feature authors from academia (e.g., 23% graduate students, 13% post-doctoral fellows and 21% professors). However, there is also a growing number of authors with PhDs that are working outside of academia (15%). Nearly a quarter (23%) of the database authors come from racial groups (African American, Latino, and Hispanic) that have been shown to be underrepresented in health-related sciences in the United States. Using the industry standard Flesch Reading Ease Score, we found that 74% of the stories included in the analysis fall in the target range of 50-70, which represents readability by students in grades 8-12. The analysis here provides the first deep look into one of the databases publishing diverse stories in science using a wide range of mediums. In summary, there is a need for more emphasis on both expanding and studying such databases given the continuous demand for these stories and their inclusion into K-12 curriculums.

中文翻译：

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《科学故事》杂志中人类叙事的演变结构和多样性

从根本上讲，科学是关于人的。尽管结果常常引起人们的更多关注，但科学背后的人们的故事与结果本身同样重要。尽管跨各种媒体存储此类故事的数据库正在增长，但是缺少对这些数据库的详细评估。为了继续创新科学叙事，我们对《科学故事杂志》上发表的叙事的结构和多样性进行了首次评估。在此评估中，分析了2016年至2020年期间158位作者创作的170个已出版故事。作者中的大多数（67％）是来自北美和生命科学领域的女性。叙述最常见的是来自学术界的作者（例如，23％的研究生，13％的博士后研究员和21％的教授）。然而，在学术界以外工作的具有博士学位的作者也越来越多（15％）。数据库作者中近四分之一（23％）来自种族群体（非裔美国人，拉丁裔和西班牙裔），这些种族群体在美国与健康相关的科学领域的代表性不足。使用行业标准的Flesch阅读轻松度得分，我们发现分析中包含的故事中74％的目标范围是50-70，这表示8-12年级的学生可读性。此处的分析提供了对其中一种数据库的首次深入了解，该数据库使用多种媒介发布了科学方面的各种故事。总而言之，鉴于对这些故事的持续需求并将其纳入K-12课程，有必要更加强调扩展和研究此类数据库。