own About page at significantobjects.com/about/ and Experimental Results page at significantobjects.com/experimental-results/. [BOTH PAGES READ IN FULL by web_fetch.] NOT A STUDY AND NEVER CITED AS ON

What our sources record

Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.

E. Design in the curators' words: a writer invents a story about an object, and the theory is tested via eBay. The curators describe volume one as 'a quasi-anthropological experiment' whose hypothesis was 'Narrative transforms insignificant objects into significant ones'. Published parameters: objects bought for no more than a few dollars from thrift stores and garage sales; one writer paired with one object; the fictional story used on eBay in place of a factual description, with the author's byline attached and care taken to avoid the impression the story was true, because hoaxing would 'void our test'; the winning bidder received the object plus a printout of the story, and net proceeds went to the writer. REAL NUMBERS, all the curators' own: first phase July to November 2009, 100 objects, stories by Sheila Heti, Nicholson Baker, Lydia Millet, Colson Whitehead, Jonathan Lethem and 95 others, result stated as 'We sold $128.74 worth of thrift-store junk for $3,612.51', roughly a twenty-eight-fold return; second phase, volume two of 50 stories raising $2,244.11 for 826 National and volume three of 50 raising $1,748.82 for Girls Write Now, plus an epistolary week for One Story and a Litquake week for Root Division, 'in all, our various second-phase efforts raised $4,351.50 for worthy, lit-related entities'; third phase, 2012, a Fantagraphics book of 100 stories. WHY IT IS NOT EVIDENCE: no object was ever listed twice, once with a story and once without, so there is no control condition; the bidders selected themselves into a publicised literary event with a press-clippings page, NPR and Slate coverage and famous bylines, and a winner received partly a signed piece of short fiction; novelty and publicity are confounded with the manipulation throughout; and the Experimental Results table contains no prices, only a 'Significance Value' running 1 to 100, which is a rank, alongside post-hoc codings of object type, significance type and a 'Narrative Mode' marked hot or cool. THE FINDING ABOUT THE FINDING, which is the article's hook: the trade cites it as proof, in framings including Entrepreneur's 'How the Significant Objects Social Experiment Proved the Economic Value of Storytelling', LinkedIn's marketing blog under 'The experiment that proves the value of stories', and a Medium piece headed 'Quantifying the value of storytelling'. Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn are living people who published their design, their conditional wording and their figures openly; the project is described accurately as journalism and literary publishing rather than science, and no intent of any kind is imputed to either of them.