Sunday, April 18, 2010

Best academic article title(s)

So much of my time is spent reading journal articles. So, what better way to amuse myself than to maintain a list of best article titles. The following two either made me smile or made me laugh, which motivated me to read on.

1. 'Ah, but the whiteys love to talk about themselves': discomfort as a pedagogy for change. (by Brenda Leibowitz, Vivienne Bozalek, Poul Rohleder, Ronelle Carolissen, and Leslie Swartz. Race Ethnicity and Education, 13 (2010): 1, 83-100)

abridged abstract: This article reports on an interdisciplinary and collaborative educational module prepared for fourth-year Psychology and Social Work students at two higher education institutions in the Western Cape, South Africa. The aim of the module was to provide students with the opportunity to experience learning across the boundaries of institution, discipline, language, race and class, and to provide the team with data to enhance understanding of how students grapple with issues of difference.

2. What women and men should be, shouldn’t be, are allowed to be, and don’t have to be: the contents of prescriptive gender stereotypes. (by Deborah A. Prentice and Erica Carranza, Psychology of Women Quarterly, 26 (2002): 269-281)

abridged abstract: This article presents a four–category framework to characterize the contents of prescriptive gender stereotypes. The framework distinguishes between prescriptions and proscriptions that are intensified by virtue of one’s gender, and those that are relaxed by virtue of one’s gender.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Haha, yes indeed. Just found this whilst procrastinating my way around an interrogation of Mau Mau nationalism. It's a dimly-lit indoor Saturday here in London...

So, perhaps you can help - any idea why academic papers generally adhere to such a rigid titling format? Was there a world conference where it was decided that 95% of all academic work must take the title format 'Vaguely creative allusion : description of content'?

Thanks,

D.

'Anything but work: The inverse relationship between weekend productivity and the proximity of my local pub'

Krysta said...

I'd most certainly read and feature your "anything but work" article if you chose to write it. Utterly hilarious!

I've equally never understood the need for both a title and a subtitle. For the most part, I find the APA reference style painful.

Thanks for such an entertaining comment.