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Getting funny things into academic work

K

I was wondering if anyone has managed to get any funny words, phrases etc into their work? I was very proud of myself earlier because I managed to get Wayne Rooney into my Masters dissertation.

Just to lighten the mood :p

I have a reference called "smith-lovin" and I always think of McLovin from superbad whenever I type it.

I have many swear words, as I like to leave them in my participants' quotes 8-)

K

Of course, get as real to the participants experiences as possible, warts and all.

A

I was very chuffed with myself the other week as I managed to get into my final discussion a line based on the "what came first the chicken or the egg" line! :)
Been wanting to put it in the whole 4 years as it basically sums up what I have been trying to find out about an area of cancer development. My second sup turned to me and just said, 'Well, Why not?', and I though - F*** it! :p

S

I put a joke into a footnote recently
"A drunk loses the keys to his house and is looking for them under a lamppost. A policeman comes over and asks what he’s doing.

“I’m looking for my keys” he says. “I lost them over there”.

The policeman looks puzzled. “Then why are you looking for them all the way over here?”

“Because the light is so much better”."

But, to be fair, I referenced about three books that used this joke for my subject area and I could have referenced a few more that said "looking under the lamppost".

W

Nice thread. Sadly, there are no sources of humour in my thesis. There are in my interview transcripts though. I wonder how I actually managed to get any usable data in fact. I have conversations about how crap Alton Towers is, a conversation (literally) about the price of fish - and there are some swear words in my work. I can't call it humour though, because, my research can be a very emotive subject.

H

I have "the only thing missing is Elvis in a rhinestone jumpsuit" in my dissertation, which I am proud of :)

K

I have to ask Helena, how and why?

H

Oh, my work is in the English dept and also involves some cultural theory - I was talking about the way certain cities have a kind of "folklore" and how it is used and adopted. This example was about Casino (the film/book). Not very happy at the moment bec my sup has had my work for 15 days and I'm just waiting for it back - due to submit on 9th Sept, so this is just wasting time :(

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