Methods: The good, the bad, and the ugly

This semester my colleague Christian Sandvig has been teaching a fabulous grad course called "Unorthodox Research Methods." (Fabulous as in, I wish I could have taken it and I'm so, so, so glad our students had the chance to). In chatting with him about it last week, he mentioned that he'd encountered so many examples of what he called "mis-methodology" that he created a web site to chronicle them. This site is, in his words, "a repository of controversial, clever, horrible, daring, or otherwise interesting examples of research that inform research design."

The whole site is marvelous, but my favorite is "Controversial acknowledgements section results in refusal to publish thesis."

Comments

[Patrick Finnegan]

Are you going to do an entry on the Illinois Gov.? I'd really like to get your take on that situation...and I'm not just talking about the hair.

[Michael Faris]

This is a great site! Thanks for sharing. :)

My favorite is the thesis with a cult following.