OBJECTIVE To investigate whether substantive criticism in electronic letters to the editor, defined as a problem that could invalidate the research or reduce its reliability, is adequately addressed by the authors. DESIGN Cohort study. SETTING BMJ between October 2005 and September 2007. Inclusion criteria Research papers generating substantive criticism in the rapid responses section on bm...

BACKGROUND As suggested by Shook and Giordano, understanding and therefore addressing the urgent international governance issues around globalizing bio-medical/technology research and applications is limited by the perception of the underlying science. METHODS A philosophical methodology is used, based on novel and classical philosophical reflection upon existent literature, clinical wisdoms ...

The inadequacy of the traditional highbrow-popular dichotomy as it has been applied to audiences is well emphasised by the subsidiary category of middlebrow. It provides a straightforward description for a zone between elite culture and entertainment that is in truth vastly more complex. In this article, three empirical research projects with connections to music are examined. Each classifies c...

Résumé When thinking of Adorno and music criticism, two strategies suggest themselves. The one is to look at the kind of criticism, cultural criticism in general and music criticism in particular, propagated by Adorno. It is, after all, difficult to overestimate the degree of his influence on musical thought in the twentieth century (whether one agrees with his views or not) and of the intellec...

Excessive self-criticism is a putative psychological vulnerability for depression, and recent findings suggest it may be important in social phobia as well. The present study investigated the role of self-criticism in predicting outcome to cognitivebehavior therapy for generalized social phobia. Eighty-four patients were assessed before and after treatment using a latent social phobia factor ba...

CRITICISM as an instinctive reaction to the performance of poetry is as old as song,” writes George Kennedy in beginning theCambridge History of Literary Criticism, and Kenneth Dover reminds readers of the Frogs that “in pre-literate cultures the composition of songs is a process in which discussion and criticism, often passionate, play an important part—and inevitably so, because aesthetic rea...

Sociolinguistic research suggests that women are more likely than men to use politeness strategies in their speech. Researchers have reported that women pay more compliments than men, that women in talk with same-sex peers use a large number of positive-politeness strategies while men in analogous situations do not, and that women are more likely to apologize, soften criticism or express thanks...

We present here our response to Dikpati et al.’s criticism of our recent solar dynamo model.