Analysis on the writing format of the key words present in agricultural scientific periodicals published between 1999 and 2011 ; Análise sobre a forma da escrita de palavras-chave em artigos científicos na área de ciências agrárias publicados no período de 1999-2011

Keywords is the smallest section in scientific publications. Its use, however, does not have a specific format among the scientific journals. The objective of this study was to perform an analysis on the scientific writing format of the Key words in national scientific articles. Thirtyeight periodicals in the agriculture area, published between 1999 and 2011, were analyzed. The parameters evaluated concerning Key words were: writing form; bold use; sign used after the Key words expression; signs used to separate words; number of words; use of simple versus compound words; use of upper-case versus lower-case; and use of period at the end of the Key words section. The results demonstrate that Key words is the most used expression (47.37%) among the ten forms found in the analyzed articles; bold, colon (:) after the term Key words, and semicolon between the words are predominant with 73.68%, 86.85% and 78.95%, respectively; 60% of the articles use from 4 to 8 words in this section; 78.95% are compound words; 55.26% show upper-case in the 1st letter of the 1st word in the Key words section; and 73.68% use a period after the last word in this section. The variation in the writing of Key words does not bring confidence to the researchers on how to write this section properly. The conclusion of this research is that there is no format available on how to write Key words in scientific articles among national magazines published in the agricultural area. ; Palavras-chave é a menor seção da escrita em artigos científicos; entretanto, seu uso ainda não é padronizado. O objetivo deste estudo foi realizar uma análise sobre a forma da escrita científica de Palavras-chave em artigos científicos nacionais, com base em 38 periódicos da área de ciências agrárias, publicados no período 1999-2011, em que os parâmetros analisados foram: Formas da escrita; Uso de negrito; Sinal usado após o termo Palavras-chave; Sinais de separação entre os vocábulos; Quantidade de palavras utilizadas; Uso de palavras simples ...