Insights

Climate march

Can Research Be Both Impactful and Neutral?

As researchers in growing numbers subscribe to movements, Giuseppe Delmestri argues that researchers have a duty to take positions that align with their work, rather than hide behind claims to value-neutrality.

3 months ago
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Don't walk sign

Are Trigger Warnings Hitting Their Target?

Given the prevalence of trigger warnings, there is little consensus on the extent to which they are, in fact, an effective strategy for reducing the risk of trauma exposure, vicarious trauma, and re-traumatization.

3 months ago
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Academic Publishers and the Challenges of AI

The role of AI in the production of research papers is rapidly moving from being a futuristic vision, towards an everyday reality; a situation with significant consequences for research integrity and the detection of fraudulent research. Rebecca Lawrence and Sabina Alam argue that for publishers, collaboration and open research workflows are key to ensuring the reliability of the scholarly record.

3 months ago
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David Dunning giving a talk

David Dunning on the Dunning-Kruger Effect

The Dunning-Kruger Effect, explains David Dunning, comes when “people who are incompetent or unskilled or not expert in a field lack expertise to recognize that they lack expertise. So they come to conclusions, decisions, opinions that they think are just fine when they’re, well, wrong.”

3 months ago
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Emoticons

Why Do Swear Words Sound the Way They Do?

The authors explored whether there are universal sound patterns in profanity. So we designed a series of studies involving speakers of different languages and found surprising patterns in how swear words sound across the world.

3 months ago
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How British Literary Psychogeography Offers Possibilities for Researchers

In the previous blog we learned about the type of psychogeographical thinking which was developed by Guy Debord and Situationist International. The latter movement was centered on France and mainland Europe in the immediate decades after World War II. Ultimately they failed to get their message through to wider society. In this article I explore how their basic principles re-emerged as a new form of psychogeography in the British Isles. This form would be less political than the work of Debord, at least on the surface, and would be championed by poets, writers of historical fiction and other forms of literature.

3 months ago
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