Saturday, September 22, 2007

Slow brain food

My org theory class is great, but some of the reading is slow. That's because we are assigned a lot of literature reviews and meta-analyses. Now I'm all in favor of this kind of work - after all, Boyer canonized it as one of the four domains of faculty research. It's the best way to get a handle on a field that's new to you. And yet, reading it is always slow. Instead of each sentence building a story, as in most articles, each sentence stands alone loaded with its own discrete information. Sometimes each clause even stands alone. It's like reading the really dull parts of the Old Testament.

Don't believe me?

Meta-analysisOld Testament
Recent reviews (Azejn 2001, Albarracin et al. 2005, Haddock & Zanna 1999, Olson & Maio 2003, Perloff 2003, Wood 2000) provide useful snapshots of the field, and distinctive subareas have attracted considerable attention. These subareas include the study of attitude functions (Maio & Olson 2000), attribute importance (van der Pligt et al. 2000), group norms (Terry & Hogg 2000), consensus and social influence (Prislin & Wood 2005), attitude representations (Lord & Pepper 1999), dual-pricess theories (Chaiken & Trope 1999), applied social influence (Butera & Mugny 2001b), media and persuasion (Bryant & Zillman 2002, Crano & Burgoon 2002), measurement and interpretation of implicit attitudes (Bassili & Brown 2005, Fazio & Olson 2003, Greenwald et al. 2002, Grenwald & Nozek 2001), and a long-overdue reconsideration of resistance (Knowles & Linn 2004). Crano & Prislin 2005Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood. The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah. And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations. And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan. And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtechah: and the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan. And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. Genesis 10:1-8

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