This paper introduces the questions an auction designer must face and the different academic disciplines that have had something to say about auctions. The first part of the paper discuses the questions that someone deciding to hold an auction must answer, points out their possible significance, and mentions some of the kinds of answers that have been used. The second part of the paper describe...

Questions pertaining to the relevance and rigor (or lack thereof) of scholarly research in business disciplines have been the focus of numerous articles in academic journals (Ruback and Innes 1988; Shrivastava 1987; Thomas and Tymon 1982; Wells 1993a) and commentaries in the business press (Byrne 1990; Jennings 1994). Assessments of academic research in the business disciplines that have appear...

This article explores the role of weblogs in promoting literacy in classroom settings. Literacy remains paramount in learning, not only for language development, but also as the foundation of all academic disciplines including science and mathematics. Storytelling ignites literacy and remains an important part of life from childhood through adulthood. Weblogs resemble personal journals or diari...

This article examines the diversity of methods in authorship attribution through a lens which focuses attention on a single common element. The current state of authorship attribution study is spread throughout so many academic and non -academic disciplines that it is nigh impossible to describe all of the various assumptions about language and authorship. The disciplines involved in authorship...

Within the field of bibliometrics, there is sustained interest in how nations “compete” in terms of academic disciplines, and what determinants explain why countries may have a specific advantage in one discipline over another. However, this literature has not, to date, presented a comprehensive structured model that could be used in the interpretation of a country’s research p...

The expression of doubt and certainty is crucial in academic writing where the authors have to distinguish opinion from fact and evaluate their assertions in acceptable and persuasive ways. Hedges and boosters are two strategies used for this purpose. Despite their importance in academic writing, we know little about how they are used in different disciplines and genres and how foreign language...

The author takes the position that both epidemiology and bioethics, as practiced within academic establishments, have largely although not entirely abstracted the public context of health and well-being from their respective disciplines. It is argued that by and large both disciplines have been highly successful at what they do. However, this success can in part be attributed to each limiting i...