Authors’ Note: The authors thank Judy Lease for helping to compile the data and the ABC Research Think Tank participants who originated the "characteristics of significant research" list that is the basis for this column and whose names are listed in the March 1995 column. W hy does some research garner attention while other research goes almost entirely unnoticed or is quickly forgotten? What characteristics typify research that gets discussed, applied, scrutinized, denied, confirmed, and referenced in collegial conversations, popular publications, journal articles, and dissertations year after year? What are the characteristics of significant research? Attempts to identify qualities that make research significant are not new. For example, in 1971 Davis presented a &dquo;Sociology of the Interesting&dquo; that he developed by analyzing research theories in the social sciences that caught the public’s fancy and achieved wide circulation outside the limits of his discipline. Driven by the conviction that &dquo;what is needed is not
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