Toward Equity in Accepted Forms of Scholarly Communication: Traditional Article Abstracts Versus the Rap Abstract

• In Event: Hip-Hop Roundtable 3

Abstract

Inequity in acceptable forms of scholarly publication in education and other academic fields can serve to maintain educational inequities. I introduce a concept intended to aid the academic community in equitably evaluating diverse forms of knowledge representation for use in scholarly communications: "cognitive data compression". Cognitive data compression refers to the ways in which humans alter the structure of information to ease or enhance cognitive processing. Using this concept as an analysis tool, I present a rap abstract of my recent investigation of neurological, perceptual and learning adaptation in expert rappers, and examine the particular usefulness (i.e., accessibility/actionability) of the rap abstract for the dissemination of scientific discovery, compared to abstracts in other formats (e.g., traditional abstract, graphical abstract, highlights).

Author

• Keith G. Cross, University of Hawaii - Manoa