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Abstract

This position paper critiques the widespread assumption that literature reviews should prioritize recent sources, often operationalized as a “5-year rule” in academic writing. While recency is valuable for capturing current developments, this practice may inadvertently exclude foundational theories and methodological principles that remain conceptually relevant. To address this issue, the paper introduces Citation Recency Bias, defined as the tendency to privilege newer sources based primarily on temporal proximity rather than functional relevance. Drawing on enduring contributions in research methodology and educational psychology, including measurement theory (Stevens, 1946), reliability estimation through Cronbach’s coefficient alpha (1951), statistical frameworks developed by Fisher (1925) and Cohen (1988), and foundational theories proposed by Bandura (1977) and Vygotsky (1978), the paper argues that many core elements of contemporary scholarship continue to rely on earlier works. Citation Recency Bias is therefore conceptualized as a methodological distortion that may weaken theoretical grounding and conceptual coherence when the publication date is treated as an indicator of scholarly value.

This dataset includes posts from Twitter (now X) from 2006 to early 2022 that mentioned a variation of T.S. Eliot's famous lines "This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper" (see "Design" for specific search terms used).

Modernist poet T.S. Eliot concluded his 1925 poem "The Hollow Men" with the iconic lines: "This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper." When Eliot died in 1965, the New York Times claimed in his obituary that these lines were “probably the most quoted lines of any 20th-century poet writing in English.” They may be among the most memed lines, as well. Through a computational analysis of Twitter data, we have found that at least 350,000 tweets have referenced or remixed Eliot’s lines since the beginning of Twitter’s history in 2006. While references to the poem vary widely, we focus on two prominent political usages of the phrase — cases where Twitter users invoke it to warn about the state of modern democracy, often from the left side of the political spectrum, and cases where they use the phrase to critique political correctness and “cancel culture” or to mock people for non-normatized aspects of their identities, often from the right side of the political spectrum. Though some of the tweets cite Eliot directly, most do not, and in many cases the phrase almost seems to be moving from an authored quotation into a common idiom or turn-of-phrase. Linguistics experts increasingly refer to this kind of construction as a “snowclone” —a fixed phrasal template, often with a culturally salient source (e.g., a quotation from a book, TV show, or movie), that has “one or more variable slots” into which users insert various “lexical substitutions" (Hartmann and Ungerer). This data thus enables researchers to study both the circulation of literature and the evolution of linguistic forms.

The State-Level Estimates of Arts Participation Patterns (2012-2015) highlights selected arts-participation rates for all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. These summary statistics were derived from the following studies: ANNUAL ARTS BASIC SURVEY, 2015 [UNITED STATES]; ANNUAL ARTS BASIC SURVEY, 2014 [UNITED STATES]; and SURVEY OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN THE ARTS (SPPA), 2012 [UNITED STATES].

The following tables are provided:

• Tables 1 and 1a-1d - Events Attended: Reports AABS 2015 data on attendance at visual and performing arts events.

  Includes - attending a live music, theater, or dance performance; attending a live book reading, poetry, or storytelling event; going to see an art exhibit; going to a movie; and touring/visiting buildings, neighborhoods, parks, or monuments for their historical, architectural, or design value.

• Table 2 - Literature Read: Shows AABS 2015 data on literary-reading rates.

  Includes - reading novels, short stories, poems, or plays.

• Table 3 - Performed or Created Artworks: Shows AABS 2014 data on personal performance and creation of artworks.

  Includes - making pottery, ceramics or jewelry; making leatherwork, metalwork, or woodwork; making weaving, crocheting, or other textile art; playing a musical instrument; acting; performing or practicing dance; doing social dancing; performing or practicing singing; creating films or videos; taking photographs for artistic purposes; creating other visual arts (e.g., paintings, sculpture, or graphic design; and doing creative writing.

• Table 4 - Arts Consumed via Electronic Media: Features SPPA 2012 data on arts consumption via electronic media.

  Includes - Use TV, Radio, and/or the Internet to watch, listen to, and/or download any: jazz; Latin, Spanish, or salsa music; classical music; opera; rock, pop, country, folk, rap, or hip-hop; musicals or stage plays; ballet, modern, or contemporary dance; other dance programs or shows; programs about visual arts such as painting, sculpture, graphic design, or photography; programs or information about books or writers, or other books, short stories, or poetry read out loud.