Wednesday 12 November 2008

Reader's Guide

We have introduced a Reader's Guide to our site, to help new readers learn about the site and its contents. A new structure and format for our site is also described below. Major changes include the introduction of Sections to organize our posts, and a schedule for new content (Monday, Wednesday and Friday). The guide appears in its entirety below.
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Dear Reader,

Welcome to OnFiction! We have prepared this short guide to help familiarize you with our site. OnFiction is quite a bit different from your average Blog. First of all, our posts do not typically deal with current events, so older posts are just as relevant and worth reading as newer posts. Posts are made on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Also, unlike most blogs, the comments on our posts tend to be substantial and of high quality. They often involve some very interesting dialogue between readers and authors, and are well worth reading.

Sections and Labels
The posts are organized into four major categories or sections: +Opinion, +Original Fiction, +Research Bulletins, and +Reviews. +Opinion pieces are typically short, theoretical or philosophical musings on the psychology of fiction. +Original Fiction denotes original fiction pieces written by the editors. +Research Bulletins summarize relevant empirical research on the psychology of fiction, or relate in other ways to current research (e.g., conference notices). +Reviews of film, books, radio programs, and television relevant to the psychology of fiction constitute our final section. You can jump to all the articles in each section by clicking on the link in the right-hand column, under “Sections and Labels.” Posts are also assigned labels related to their content, so you can pull up all the posts that relate to Memory, for example, by clicking on the Memory label.

Archives
Our site is also different in that it offers a great deal of archived information on separate pages. These include: Academic Papers, Magazine Articles, Book and Film Reviews, Original Fiction, a list of Books on the Psychology of Fiction, and a list of Psychologically Significant Fiction. You can access these archives by clicking on the links under the heading “Archives” in the right-hand column. Our lists of books (both on the psychology of fiction, and the psychologically significant) include short, micro-reviews to help you get a sense of each title.

Links
We also offer links to other researchers who investigate the psychology of fiction, and sites related to this topic.

How can you get involved?
Currently, we are accepting submissions for our lists of books on the psychology of fiction, and fiction that might be considered psychologically significant. With your suggestion, we would appreciate a short (50 to 100 word) micro-review. If you would like to have your name added to our list of researchers, or your site added to our links, please let us know. We welcome comments to our posts (with the usual reservations about lapses of politeness and so forth). It is easy to make a comment: at the end of each post you can see something like "0 Comments" or "2 Comments." (The number indicates how many comments have been made on that post so far.) Just click on it, and a box appears for you to write in. You can contact us via e-mail (addresses in our profiles). Also, you can subscribe to our site using the options listed under the “Subscribe” heading.

Thank you for visiting our site, we are looking forward to hearing from you.

Keith Oatley, Ph.D.
Maja Djikic, Ph.D.
Raymond A. Mar, Ph.D.
Kirsten Valentine Cadieux, Ph.D.

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