Papers for Publication

From Notional Slurry comes a wonderful take-down on academic papers and scientific publications in general... Just a taste: bq. I am reviewing manuscripts. Because I am a kind person, I am reviewing something like three dozen of them this Spring for the Summer conference season. I may be reviewing yours. Or, because I hope to remain a kind person, and odds therefore favor me reviewing even more papers in future years, I may in future review one of your manuscripts. bq. I want to give you a bit of advice. Two bits, in fact: no, and no. bq. Oh, what the heck, here’s what they mean in context: bq. 1. If you believe that your special super-duper method or algorithm is better than anybody else’s specifically because you thought it up yourself, and one night you coded it up yourself and ran a few runs and therefore are submitting an eight-page manuscript to an international conference to the effect that “Linear Agent-based Representation with Pseudomunging Outperforms Really Old-fashioned Simple 1960s Representations From My First-year Textbook, Well At Least for Descartes’ Snooker Problem with Boolean Boundary Conditions (Most of the Time)”, I will roll the manuscript up and hit you on the nose with it. And I will say, “No!” in a stern voice. bq. In public, at the meeting, if need be. Don’t you make me come over there and hit you on the nose during your 20-minute Powerpoint presentation! I have had some exposure to this world -- both in college and having a small business and having to deal with academic clients. They live in a world of their own. Fascinating at times but strongly decoupled from reality. The rest of the article (and the second 'no') is a hoot.