The Quantitative Peace

Music and Academia: The Role of Colons in Titles

This post is written by Ben Farrer whose account is currently down.

I’m starting to strongly dislike academic titles that take the form: “Metaphor For x: Actual Description Of x”, or similar, and am venting my frustration with a game.

As an example of the type I dislike, one of my own undergraduate essays was entitled: “Holding out for a Hero? The Roles of Lincoln and of Slaves in Emancipation”. A poor effort on my part, but you get the picture.

I’ve been guilty of using this template regularly myself, but I’m beginning to believe that it falls down on two counts.

Firstly it’s maybe a bit patronizing? It assumes the reader needs to be ‘hooked’ with some sly pop-culture reference before they’ll be interested in reading any further. Second, it absolves authors of the responsibility to find one phrase that both communicates what the piece is about and encourage the reader to continue. Ideally I don’t think there has to be a separation of what’s ‘interesting’ about an article from its bare-bones description.

However, in my mind the most glaring argument against these titles is that nobody else uses this template.

And perhaps with good reason. Below are some examples from the world of music as it could be after imposing this template. Regardless of how you feel about this title structure, I think it’s possible to have fun coming up with these, so feel free to add your own examples in the comments.

“Can’t Get No Satisfaction”: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Masculinity, with Evidence From Contemporary Advertising Media. Jagger, Mick, et al 196x.

“Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag”: Intersections of Conspicuous Consumption and the Weberian View of Work Ethics. Brown, James. 197x. Journal of Getting Down With Your Bad Self.

“Waterloo”: An Oral History of Relationship Violence From The 19^th Century Onwards. Lyngstad, Anni-Frid ‘Frida’, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Agnetha Fältskog, (henceforth ABBA). 19xx.

“Imagine”: Preference Homogeneity and a Proposed Reconciliation Between Populism and Ethical Philosophy. Lennon, John. 19xx.

“It’s Oh So Quiet”: The Role of Emotional Imbalance in Sonic Perception in Human Subjects. Bjork, 19xx.

“Five Years Time”: Risk Aversion and the Shadow of the Future. Noah and the Whale, 20xx.

“Over and Over”: Replication and Popperian Science with Applications to Dance-Floors. Hot Chip, 20xx.

“Common People”: Participant Observation and Moral Quandaries in Class-Based Ethnography. Cocker, Jarvis, et al 199x.

“You Give Love A Bad Name”: Reputation Effects In The Field of Cardiac Trauma Jovi,Jon Bon, et al. 19xx. The American Epic Hair Review, Special Issue: 80^th Anniversary of the Perm.

I may add any more that I feel are particularly good ones, as they occur to me. But, I hope to do a lot better with my own titles in the future.

 

Let's Rent Liechtenstein

The entire country of Liechtenstein is now up for rent. Yes, you read correctly, the entire country! It costs $70,000 a night, with a two night minimum, and there are accommodations for 900 guests. Some of the perks include being presented with the symbolic key to the state by parliament, renaming the streets and the town square, and printing your own currency with your picture on it.

Even though renting the country of Liechtenstein sounds like fun, there are limits to what you can do. Unsurprisingly, you do not get to determine what type of government it has, get involved in politics, or make laws.  If you could, the potential for social experiments would be endless.

Although Liechtenstein cannot be rented to conduct social experiments, it would be an oddly appropriate venue to hold a political science conference. Therefore, we should petition APSA to hold a conference there. If they could get 900 attendees, it would only cost $156 a person. That is on par with the cost of going to most conferences- and they get to rent a whole country with it!

MWPSA Paper

I will be flying for Chicago early Wednesday morning for the Midwest Political Science Association Conference.  This is my first co-authored paper with Julie (another contributor to his blog) and we will present the following paper Thursday morning:

The contemporary rise to infamy of Blackwater Worldwide and the private corporation's misdeeds in the Iraq War has historical precedents. That is, it is not unheard of for a state to employ non-state actors to carry out traditional state activities such as the use of force - something the modern
state is supposed to have a monopoly over. In this paper, we build a game theoretic model that determines the prospects for using non-state actors in combat on behalf of the state. From this model, we hypothesize that despite the risk of agency loss by these private combatants, certain
conditions increases the likelihood of their use. Specifically, autocratic polities are predicted to have a positive influence on the employment of non-state combatants while their democratic peers will prefer to abstain from such activities. We test these hypotheses using a censored probit model for all bilateral wars from 1816-2002.

For many, I will be seeing you at the conference.  Feedback on the paper is welcomed.

An Additional Benefit of Rapid Delivery

My teaching style, as well as my presentation style, is marked by a relatively rapid delivery.  I had favored such a style quite awhile ago for many public speaking formats as the general perception of the speaker by the audience is favorable (generally heighten perceptions of intelligence and mastery of the material). 

However, now I can justify such approaches beyond my own perceived benefit and claim that I am doing my audience a favor.  That is, those who engage the presented material will tend to be happier thanks to my public service:

In six experiments, researchers at Princeton and Harvard universities made research participants think quickly by having them generate as many problem-solving ideas (even bad ones) as possible in 10 minutes, read a series of ideas on a computer screen at a brisk pace or watch an I Love Lucy video clip on fast-forward. Other participants performed similar tasks at a relaxed speed.

Results suggested that thinking fast made participants feel more elated, creative and, to a lesser degree, energetic and powerful. Activities that promote fast thinking, then, such as whip­ping through an easy crossword puzzle or brain-storming quickly about an idea, can boost energy and mood, says psychologist Emily Pronin, the study’s lead author.

Drinks with Bloggers at ISA

I, unfortunately, will be leaving ISA and NYC this morning and will be missing a bloggers get together of sorts tonight.  However, for those of you here at ISA and reading blogs instead of attending panels, this gathering may be of interest.

MPSA abstracts due today.

Just in case you were not subject to the barrage of email reminders, the deadline for Midwest Proposals is today:

Call for Papers for the 67th MPSA Political Science Conference April 2-5, 2009,  Palmer House Hilton Hotel, Chicago
*******************************************************************************
Deadline to submit a proposal:  October 10, 2008.    

Please forward this email to faculty or graduate students who may be interested.

Submit a proposal to present a paper, or serve as a discussant/chair. With 900+ sessions it is one of the largest in the discipline.
        http://www.mpsanet.org/~mpsa/Conference/submit.html

The conference is held in the recently renovated Palmer House Hilton. To insure you have a room, make your reservations now!
         http://www.mpsanet.org/~mpsa/Conference/travel.html

There are many receptions and opportunities to network throughout the conference. Your group can also host a meeting or reception:
          http://www.mpsanet.org/~mpsa/Conference/meetings.html

Midwest Political Science Association, founded in 1939 320 W 8th Street, #218,  Bloomington, IN 47404 www.mpsanet.org

Sorry for any cross postings. If you received this email in error, please contact us at info@mpsanet.org

Conference Double Dipping: How Germ Free is Your Paper?

Since it had become suggested reading for our first year graduate students in their introduction to methods course, I finally compelled myself to read over the April edition of PS: Political Science and its symposium on duplicate paper presentations at conferences.  That is, whether it is acceptable for an identical paper to be presented at different conferences.  My exposure to conferences is limited compared to the  more lengthy CVs and experiences of the senior members of the profession.  Despite this limitation, my exposure to repeat submissions and presentations has occurred on more than one occasion.  When asking graduate students at his institution, Dometrius reports in his introductory note:

When raising the same topic with graduate students, however, the modal reply was a blank stare—a lack of comprehension that presenting the same paper as many times as you wished would be viewed by anyone as an unusual or questionable practice.

This observation seems to be a shocking predisposition (to me at least) as presenting identical work, demanding the attention of people (with a high probability of seeing the same panelists, discussants, or audience members in the subsequent presentation) to hear the same research without substantial changes puts strains on the time and resources of individuals and, at more selective conferences where presentation space is rare, constrains other researchers from presenting (Sigelman (2008) argues that the marginal utility of round one reviews is greater than what is gained in the same slot by a second round of reviewers, decreasing the overall gain from that conference slot). 

Additionally, graduate students may have encountered academic norms and official policies against submission of the same paper twice in undergraduate or graduate course work.  This norm against double submissions, from all that I have heard and read, exists for political science journals as well where duplicate journal submissions can lead to automatic rejection and subsequent, identical journal submissions (without revisions suggested in the first roun) does not fare well with a small pool of potential reviewers who are unlikely to take kind to the lack of revisions suggested in their first rejection letter.  Consequently, based on other practices and demands in the discipline, I would venture that the innate bias would be against such practices, not a default in favor of it. 

This is not to be construed as my own personal bias as the Cooper (2008) piece provides some rational, persuasive arguments of why mutliple presentations of the same article may be of use.  Additionally, other authors suggest that departmental constraints and incentives are more likely to shape the behavior of submissions as teaching loads and tenure requirements are very real inducements when considering what to submit.  More so, the above paragraph is attempting to suggest why there would be pre-existing inertia against such a practice and fresh members of community (read: incoming graduate students) would interpret such disciplinary norm as a warrant against double submission/presentation of identical papers as opposed to favoring such a practice. 

Regardless, there are  several pieces in the discussion that create a cohesive exchange of ideas.

@ APSA

I was hoping to produce a substantive post this week, but the upcoming conference for the American Political Science Association seems to monopolizing my time this week.  As such, I may see some of you there ; though, maybe not at 8am. This is my first official trip to Boston, so thankfully I am going with an experienced tour guide.

Despite my absence, I am sure my co-bloggers will hold down the fort this week in my absence.

More from SSRN: Publishing Advice for Graduate Students

It appears that I might be a little late to the game judging by the Technorati reactions; however, that will not stop me now or in the near future.  After some initial prompting from Richard Frank, this stellar introductory piece for graduate students posted back in January (universalized for all disciplines) details four avenues for publication: book reviews, conference presentations, articles and replies, and books.  Abstract:

Graduate students often lack concrete advice on publishing. This essay is an attempt to fill this important gap. Advice is given on how to publish everything from book reviews to articles, replies to book chapters, and how to secure both edited book contracts and authored monograph contracts, along with plenty of helpful tips and advice on the publishing world (and how it works) along the way in what is meant to be a comprehensive, concrete guide to publishing that should be of tremendous value to graduate students working in any area of the humanities and social sciences.

For those who are already familiar with the publishing game, this article may not be overly useful - but passing it on to others who could use a basic instruction manual would benefit.  Not all of the advice is germane to every journal and discipline (for example, it seems less journals do actual paper submissions as suggested by the article section, but dealing with e-mail submissions are covered elsewhere) - however, lacking specific advice in every section is to be expected from anything less than a multvolume book series.  It is currently one of the most downloaded articles for Political Science on SSRN and worth the read.

Conferences go digital and explore the World of Warcraft

I have actively played video games since before I could actively recall solid memories of my childhood.*  Some of my earliest memories do include an Atari system set up by my father and primitive graphics.  A lifetime of video games has lead to my current past time of World of Warcraft which I have since spent countless hours (some readers are already aware of this).**  This has even lead to primordial discussions of a unique situation, ripe for academic exploration, in which particular raw goods are more valuable than the "value added" goods produced from them in the game.  This is functionally equivalent to small amounts of wood, graphite, and rubber being more valuable than the pencils that are produced from combining these materials.  Yet, these goods are still produced and poses an anomaly for normal economics.***  Given that there is an open exchange between virtual currencies (gold in WoW) and "real" currencies (Dollars, etc.), this is a fascinating problem.

However, this post concerns none of these topics and are only used as a background to my complete fascination with the following discussion.  This post is about conferences.  Conferences in the World of Warcraft.  I was toying with the idea of starting a guild (an online group category in the World of Warcraft) formulated around advanced degrees in social science (the best name for it so far is "Homo Economicus"), and it appears the group has already started a similar feat as a result of the conference.  Individuals dawned virtual identities (identities primed for combat against various forces), found a location to locate over 100 people, and discuss academic issues.

The article linked above is detailed, informative, and worth the read.  The idea of virtual conferences in a framed time and space brings up limitations to such ventures both past and future.  Paper distribution has to occur before the conference (which is a norm regardless), you would be prevented from using slides and graphics for an audience that has not read the paper (though that sometimes can be a boon), users unfamiliar with the environment will have problems integrating and navigating the various user interface features, it is prone to anonymous disruption, and requires significant computing resources that not every academic has available.  The issue of anonymous disruption becomes even more of an issue if non-specialists find out en masse about the conference.  While the benevolent nuisance mentioned in the article was mannered and productive, video gamers (including those as young as 7 or 8)  may not be so kind.

There are a few other coordination issues (time zone differences, subscription costs), but these can be avoided or alleviated to an acceptable degree.   In general, I don't see World of Warcraft itself see as a lasting forum (thought it boasts over 10 million active and paying users) and something like a Conference Wiki would likely be more conducive to the exchange of ideas, articles, and graphics.  Despite these flaws, I am amused and excited that it has happened and hope there was some productive exchanges - given a discussion based framework of a panel, I can see the large number of known and anonymous discussants could be potentially fruitful.

As a side note, anyone who missed Julie's and Cynthia's earlier posts I encourage you to take a look at them and offer some suggestions as they are openly asking for some input - Julie for humor and Cynthia for serious academic insight.

*There might be pictures that have supplemented this memory.
**The game actually counts them, I just refuse add those numbers up and reveal them publicly.
***There is an additional utility from making these goods -- an apprenticeship gain from practicing a craft.  However, the prevalence of these products on a very active market is something worth modeling.