Everything about Anecdote totally explained
» For other uses, see Anecdota.:
For a comparison of anecdote with other kinds of stories, see Myth, legend, fairy tale, and fable.
An
anecdote is a short
tale narrating an interesting or amusing
biographical incident. It may be as brief as the setting and provocation of a
bon mot. An anecdote is always based on real life, an incident involving actual persons, whether famous or not, in real places. However, over time, modification in reuse may convert a particular anecdote to a fictional piece, one that's retold but is "too good to be true". Sometimes humorous, anecdotes are not
jokes, because their primary
purpose isn't simply to evoke laughter, but to reveal a truth more general than the brief tale itself, or to delineate a character trait or the workings of an institution in such a light that it strikes in a flash of insight to their very essence. A brief monologue beginning "A man pops in a bar..." will be a joke. A brief monologue beginning "Once
J. Edgar Hoover popped in a bar..." will be an anecdote. An anecdote thus is closer to the tradition of the
parable than the patently invented
fable with its animal characters and generic human figures— but it's distinct from the parable in the
historical specificity which it claims. An anecdote isn't a
metaphor nor does it bear a
moral, a necessity in both parable and fable, merely an illustrative incident that's in some way an
epitome.
Note that in the context of
Lithuanian,
Bulgarian and
Russian humor anecdote refers to any short humorous story without the need of factual or biographical origins.
The word
anecdote ("unpublished", literally "not given out") comes from
Procopius of Caesarea, the biographer of
Justinian I, who produced a work entitled
Ανεκδοτα (
Anekdota, variously translated as
Unpublished Memoirs or
Secret History), which is primarily a collection of short incidents from the private life of the
Byzantine court. Gradually, the term
anecdote came to be applied to any short tale utilized to emphasize or illustrate whatever point the author wished to make.
As a rule, biographical anecdotes are considered too
trivial or
apocryphal to be included in a scholarly
biography.
Anecdotes are typically oral and ephemeral. They are just one of the many types of stories told in organizations and the collection of anecdotes from people in an organization can be used to better understand its organizational culture (Snowden, 1999; Gabriel, 2000).
Examples
The following are examples of anecdotes:
A more sophisticated anecdote concerns
Sidney Morgenbesser, then
Professor Emeritus of
Philosophy at
Columbia University, as follows:
For many years
Reader's Digest featured "My Most Embarrassing Moment", anecdotes with the general theme, "life's like that", a common reaction to a well-told anecdote.
From 2006 onwards, Canadian CBC Television's
The Hour has been airing a segment called "Best Story Ever". During these segments, staff from CBC Television and CBC Radio would discuss interesting anecdotes that happened to them. Most of the stories are humorous.
"Merely anecdotal": anecdotal evidence
Anecdotal evidence is an informal account of
evidence in the form of an anecdote, or
hearsay. The term is often used in contrast to
scientific evidence, as evidence that can't be investigated using the
scientific method. The problem with arguing based on anecdotal evidence is that anecdotal evidence isn't necessarily typical; only statistical evidence can determine how typical something is. Misuse of anecdotal evidence is a
logical fallacy.
When used in
advertising or promotion of a product, service, or idea, anecdotal evidence is often called a
testimonial and is banned in some jurisdictions. The term is also sometimes used in a legal context to describe certain kinds of testimony. Psychologists have found that people are more likely to remember notable examples than the typical example.
In all forms of anecdotal evidence,
objective independent assessment may be in doubt. This is a consequence of the informal way the information is gathered, documented, presented, or any combination of the three. The term is often used to describe evidence for which there's an absence of documentation. This leaves verification dependent on the credibility of the party presenting the evidence.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Anecdote'.
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