Few studies carried out in the social sciences are reported in mainstream media so that it is always interesting to see ones that buck this trend. The latest example was a small scale study that looked at ‘how well a spectrogram can pick out voice features which would identify the speaker as being alcohol intoxicated’… Continue reading The reporting of social science
Category: reporting
Academic writing retreats: are they worth it?
The university in which I work puts on two-day writing retreat events – these are not residential but just an opportunity to work on something in a dedicated space, in the presence of colleagues all doing their own writing. I try to go to these when I can, I find I can concentrate better in… Continue reading Academic writing retreats: are they worth it?
Do the drugs work?
I was struck the other day by the reporting in the press of an academic paper on antidepressants and their impact [1]. According to these reports antidepressants were now officially verified as very effective and should be taken by more people. But was this really what the study was saying? This is the story. In… Continue reading Do the drugs work?
How to write a thesis
In writing about action research I once borrowed Richard Winter’s metaphor of ‘researcher as detective’ [1]. I should say the parallel for me is with the television detective made familiar to us recently in the UK through Swedish detective series such as the Bridge, the Killing and Wallender. It is the obsession of the TV… Continue reading How to write a thesis
Michael Hammond 