Jeff Ricker wrote:
> A silly question occurred to me after I finished reading another paper
> (one of thousands in my career) that ended with the line, "...but more
> research is necessary." Has there ever been a paper that ended with
> something like the following line: "We have answered this question, no
> more research is necessary."
>
> Perhaps I'm not getting enough sleep lately.
>
Quoting from a handout from Daryl Bem's Practicum in article writing
(Stanford, 1976):
" ... your final statements should be broad statements about the problem or
about human behavior. End with a bang, not a whimper. "Perhaps, then, the
concept of androgyny will come to define a new standard of mental health, a
standard which will liberate people rather than incarcerate them." Yes, yes!
Compare: "Thuis further research will be needed before it is clear whether
the androgyny scale should be scored as a single continuous dimension or
partitioned into a 4-way typology." No, no! Such a sentence may be
appropriate in the discussion, but please, not your final farewell. Someday
I hope to end an article asserting that further research on the topic would
be superfluous, a waste of time, or perhaps unnecessary now that the problem
is clearly solved. (I have done this timidly one or two places, but it would
be fun to really do it as a satire on most journal article endings.) Unless
you can do this, however, the last sentence should probably not repeat the
shopworn phrase about further research."
Jeff - You are not alone!
--
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John W. Kulig [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of Psychology http://oz.plymouth.edu/~kulig
Plymouth State College tel: (603) 535-2468
Plymouth NH USA 03264 fax: (603) 535-2412
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"What a man often sees he does not wonder at, although he knows
not why it happens; if something occurs which he has not seen before,
he thinks it is a marvel" - Cicero.
