Filter & Sort
Opinion
Truth or Consequences
In Deciding What’s True, Lucas Graves traces how media outlets’ internal fact-checking has morphed into something almost antithetical: the very public evaluation of factual assertions made by politicians and other news figures, writes Scott McLemee.
Opinion
He Said, She Said
In each of two new novels, Loner and Diary of an Oxygen Thief, it is the narrator's attitude that sticks with the reader more than the events recounted, writes Scott McLemee.
Opinion
On the Offbeat
A legendary American miracle worker claimed to read books without opening them -- a trick researchers have just pulled off in the lab. Scott McLemee looks from inside a lattice of coincidences.
Opinion
Fundamental Trump
Aaron James's provocative new theory on Donald Trump suggests that the presidential candidate's rise makes a certain amount of sense in the context of a republic collapsing under strain, writes Scott McLemee.
Opinion
Write On!
In our digital age, some people predict that writing by hand could become an antiquarian hobby, but Anne Trubek's The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting is a story of metamorphosis, not of decline, writes Scott McLemee.
Opinion
Increase Scholarly Visibility Using This One Weird Trick!
Scott McLemee reviews a scholarly article that examines how small but significant tweaks to an academic paper's title can make it more likely to win attention.
Opinion
Studying With the Master
Scott McLemee examines the quite serious -- and surprisingly abundant -- scholarship on Donald Trump's The Apprentice.
Opinion
Making It Count
Ken Ono's memoir, My Search for Ramanujan: How I Learned to Count, is a story of the life-enhancing (and quite possibly life-saving) influence of friends and mentors, writes Scott McLemee.