Richard Strauss completed a postgraduate thesis on the history of his favourite car, which was published as Up For Rego: A Social History Of The Holden Kingswood. That's him on the cover, which gives you some idea of the tone of the contents.
Aside: he also taught me year 10 high school history. He's a legend. posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:18 PM on November 11, 2010
You say "fact-finding", but does it have to be empirical? One of the most famous in economics is Paul Krugman's "Theory of Interstellar Trade." There's also Axel Leijonhufvud's "Life Among the Econ" - an anthropological study making fun of the varieties of academic economists. posted by milkrate at 10:01 PM on November 11, 2010 [2 favorites]
Growing a Language by Guy Steele (co-inventor of Scheme) is about programming languages. It starts a bit oddly, but once you realize what the gimmick is, the paper itself becomes a beautiful example of the point it's trying to make. The effect is even better when it's read aloud. posted by teraflop at 10:05 PM on November 11, 2010 [1 favorite]
And yes, there really is such an analysis, showing how the dress designers avoid malfunctions. posted by Chocolate Pickle at 12:09 AM on November 12, 2010
I like English sentences without overt grammatical subjects. It's a serious linguistic analysis of curse words, but written by someone with the pen name "Quang Phuc Dong" from the "South Hanoi Institute of Technology" (S.H.I.T)... and it goes from there. posted by forza at 1:00 AM on November 12, 2010
Published in Nature in 2002 posted by TheOtherGuy at 2:06 AM on November 12, 2010
When I was doing research into scatter patterns on archaeological sites, I came across "Child's Play: A Distorting Factor in Archaeological Distribution" (JSTOR link) The gist of the three page paper is that the author brought his kid to a refuse pile and watched the kid's distribution of rubbish as he played with it. Sample size is too small to really draw conclusions, IMO (n=1), and it's totally not fair that a 3 year old got to be lead author. posted by cobaltnine at 5:25 AM on November 12, 2010 [1 favorite]
>It's a serious linguistic analysis of curse words, but written by someone with the pen name "Quang Phuc Dong"
Just to give credit where credit is due (it's a classic paper), the author is James D. McCawley. posted by languagehat at 6:52 AM on November 12, 2010
'This Article is as simple and provocative as its title suggests: it explores the legal implications of the word fuck. The intersection of the word fuck and the law is examined in four major areas: First Amendment, broadcast regulation, sexual harassment, and education.' posted by T.D. Strange at 11:25 AM on November 12, 2010
The Annals of Improbable Research sponsor the IgNobel awards, but they also have a site and a newsletter. Just in case you didn't realize that. posted by ctmf at 1:49 PM on November 12, 2010
posted by emyd at 9:10 PM on November 11, 2010