5 May
2006
5 May
'06
3:41 a.m.
you're right about the title; its hard to understand what its about until
at least you read the abstract. and fyi: creating memorable titles is a
goal we haven't talked about. its secondary to getting people to
understand what your argument is, and not always necessary, but it can be
useful. you have to draw a fine line and not annoy reviewers with being
too cute or whatever, but having a memorable title (turn of a phrase,
etc.) is a good thing for the article. in political science 90.1% of
articles are never cited even once (and probably not ever read either) and
so if you can find a way to stand above the crowd its often worth doing.
i also have a substantive/methodological question that is presumably
answered by the paper: could the observed change merely be due to
changing meanings of 'discussion partners' or 'intimate ties'? i.e.,
maybe its just DIF (see 'anchoring vignettes' on my web page for a
definition).
Gary
On Fri, 5 May 2006, Abby Williamson wrote:
Hello all,
We?d appreciate your comments on our draft abstract. The title remains a
bit awkward, so any suggestions on that are particularly welcome.
Best,
Abby, Kira, and Anant
From ?Sing, Sing, Sing? to ?The Sound of
Silence:?
Evidence that Generational Replacement is Shrinking Americans'
Discussion
Networks
Kira Matus, Anant Thaker, Abigail Williamson
Abstract
Comparing Americans' discussion networks in 1985 and 2004, McPherson et. al.
(2006) find a substantial drop in the number of people adults talk to about
important matters. Over this period, the mean number of discussion partners
reported on the General Social Survey fell from three to two, while the mode
fell from three to zero. Since questions about discussion networks elicit
information about respondents? most intimate ties, this finding suggests
that Americans today have fewer sources of socio-emotional support. We
extend McPherson et. al.'s findings, using exact matching to demonstrate
that changes in the racial, educational, and income composition of the
population do not account for network shrinkage between 1985 and 2004.
Rather, we find evidence of Putnam's (2000) claim that generational
replacement is key in explaining shrinking social networks, as consecutively
less social cohorts replace the especially gregarious World War II
generation.