{"id":10729,"date":"2012-11-19T12:35:47","date_gmt":"2012-11-19T17:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=10729"},"modified":"2012-11-19T12:35:47","modified_gmt":"2012-11-19T17:35:47","slug":"sblaar-punny-papers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/11\/sblaar-punny-papers.html","title":{"rendered":"#sblaar Punny Papers"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>The day before yesterday <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/11\/sblaar-now-presenting.html\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"\" class=\" decorated-link\">I was involved in a session put together by the SBL student organization, on how to prepare for and effectively deliver a good conference presentation<\/a>. <\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both;text-align: right\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2012\/11\/wpid-Photo-Nov-18-2012-423-PM1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2012\/11\/wpid-Photo-Nov-18-2012-423-PM1.jpg\" class=\"alignright\" width=\"171\" height=\"240\" alt=\"\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p> Since an earlier panelist had rightly pointed out that an abstract is no place for jokes, and given my appreciation for the humorous, I thought that I would comment on appropriate humor for conference papers themselves, including their titles. <\/p>\n<p>If a joke naturally flows from the topic, it can be enjoyable. But it shouldn't be forced, and making a joke just for the sake of it may not be appropriate. <\/p>\n<p>I offered <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/11\/sblaar-religion-and-science-fiction-from-chrono-synclastic-infundibula-to-the-definition-of-chalcetron.html\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"\" class=\" decorated-link\">the puns from the paper on TRON which I previously blogged about<\/a> as an example of humor which worked because they naturally connected with the theme.<\/p>\n<p> As an example of what <em>not <\/em>to do I came up with the following title: \u201cAliens in the New Testament: In Luke-Acts, No One Can Hear You Scream.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately for my point, that got quite an outburst of laughter.<\/p>\n<p>What titles have you heard that were <em>trying<\/em> to be funny, and perhaps trying too hard? What examples of funny titles of talks, conference papers or articles have you heard that really worked?<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The day before yesterday I was involved in a session put together by the SBL student organization, on how to prepare for and effectively deliver a good conference presentation. Since an earlier panelist had rightly pointed out that an abstract is no place for jokes, and given my appreciation for the humorous, I thought that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,42,88,1],"tags":[195,281,552,2116,2117,4871,9475,10835,11511],"class_list":["post-10729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-academy-of-religion","category-humor","category-society-of-biblical-literature","category-uncategorized","tag-sblaar","tag-aar","tag-american-academy-of-religion","tag-conference","tag-conference-paper","tag-humor","tag-presentation","tag-sbl","tag-society-of-biblical-literature"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>#sblaar Punny Papers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The day before yesterday I was involved in a session put together by the SBL student organization, on how to prepare for and effectively deliver a good\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/11\/sblaar-punny-papers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"#sblaar Punny Papers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The day before yesterday I was involved in a session put together by the SBL student organization, on how to prepare for and effectively deliver a good\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/11\/sblaar-punny-papers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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