UNR student’s work marked as ‘noble’ effort

Jennifer Knight

Thursday, Oct. 10, 2002 | 11:14 a.m.

To a UNR doctoral candidate, a dubious distinction garnered by her research may be the highlight of her young career.

To a group of scientists, Vicki L. Silvers' research into inappropriate highlighting and reading comprehension may be something to note, but not necessarily something to underline.

Silvers and a colleague were given the tongue-in-cheek Ig Nobel Prize in Literature last week for their published work into how highlighting marks, ubiquitous in used college text books, may harm reading comprehension.

The Ig Nobel prizes go for work that "cannot and should not be reproduced," according to the award sponsor, the Annals of Improbable Research. Winners must pay their own way to Harvard University to claim their prize at a ceremony that is short on seriousness and long on silliness.

Silvers, a doctoral candidate in experimental psychology at UNR, and the study's co-author, David Kreiner of Central Missouri State University, did the work when Silvers was at Central Missouri. They said they were ignorant of the Ig Nobels when they heard about the award.

"I was kind of confused at first," Kreiner said. "When I was told that we won I asked what it was for. I was kind of offended and honored at the same time that somebody had actually read the article."

Silvers didn't know what to think.

"At first my heart was pounding because with selective hearing, at first, I thought he said Nobel Prize," Silvers said. "And I thought, 'How can you win a Nobel Prize for highlighting?' "

You can if it's the Ig Nobel.

The award in interdisciplinary research was given to an Australian researcher whose study on bellybutton lint concluded that you're more likely to have it if you're male, hairy and have an "innie." The biology prize went to a British study on the sexual arousal of ostriches around humans.

The Ig Nobel Peace Prize went to a team of Japanese researchers who invented the "Bow-Lingual," a "dog-to-human language translation device." The award citation notes the inventors are "promoting peace and harmony between the species" with their device.

Despite the jokes, the research all starts with serious goals even if it ends up with chuckles.

"We're glad that she got the Ig Nobel prize for her research at Central Missouri and we're glad that she's getting her Ph.D here, but we assume the next time she wins a prize it will be from here and it will have the Ig removed,"said Linda Brinkley, UNR's vice provost for research. "It's great fun," she added. "It's just two little letters away."

UNR's Silvers said she came up with the idea for the study in 1994 when she was an undergraduate student.

One day while standing in line at a college bookstore Silvers noticed a guy buying a used book.

"This person in front of me was looking through a used book and said, 'Oh, cool dude, look at this book it's highlighted. All I have to do is read the highlighted parts.' " Silvers said. "I got a chill all over me. I thought, 'Oh my god, what if some person reads my book whose obviously not too bright like he is?' "

With that -- Silvers quickly obtained a $2,400 grant and the highlighting study was born. She named it, appropriately, "The Effects of Pre-existing Inappropriate Highlighting on Reading Comprehension."

The conclusion was that if you buy a used book and it's highlighted, you probably won't comprehend everything you read.

Silvers said she and Kreiner were so excited by the first results they even did a follow-up study. This time, they placed a warning label on the study that read, "Bad highlighting may affect your reading comprehension."

The results were the same as the first study. They even found that pre-existing appropriate highlighting also adversely affected comprehension.

Silvers said the Ig Nobel awards have turned out to be a good thing. She has all kinds feedback on the study and people are actually reading her research -- in unhighlighted form.

"Who would have thought that this particular research would have taken me such a long way?" Silvers said. "So many things have happened because of this silly research project -- and all because this fool was standing in front of me."