[Roleplaying] Peer review articles for live roleplaying

[J. Tuomas Harviainen]

On Mon, 7 Dec 2009, Wagner Luiz Schmit wrote:

> I think that because all this, transcultural studies would be very
> interesting, so a data bank with local material will help a lot anyone
> interested in doing this kind of research... Even if the only thing
> available in english is the abstract, we can know more of what is 
> going on and where.... We only win from this...

I very much agree with Wagner. This is precisely why i've been 
summarizing Finnish works on role-playing studies for the last couple of 
years, with (sometimes too harsh) critique included.

Two things I have found extra advantages with the local sources: One, 
after one sees an abstract, it's possible to ask the author for more 
details - and possibly give credit where it's due, eventually. And two: 
Whenever I find a local-language text I consider of general interest, 
I tend to send the author an email and as him/her to possibly write 
an English article version for one journal or another. Sometimes they 
do.

Without archived abstracts in English, hunting for potential new sources 
would be much harder. We need those, also for the purpose of grooming 
the future generations of role-playing researchers. There are people 
simply waiting for someone to tell them that there really would be 
readers for their studies outside their native countries, and if told 
this, they may provide very impressive work indeed.

 	-Jiituomas