On Publishing

Dr. Claude Mariottini has a recent blog post about publishing.

It seems that a fellow, one Philip Davis, from the Center for Research in Applied Phrenology submitted a paper to Bentham publishing, who publishes open access journals, where authors pay a fee to have an article published.

Well, Philip Davis passed the peer review, received a request for a payment of $800 with a promise to publish the article. You can read his story here.

Who wrote the paper? A computer program. Yes, that’s right. Davis says:

Using SCIgen, a software that generates grammatically correct, “context-free” (i.e. nonsensical) papers in computer science, I quickly created an article, complete with figures, tables, and references. It looks pretty professional until you read it.

What did the paper say? In part, it said:

In conclusion, in our research we explored TriflingThamyn, a method for virtual methodologies. To accomplish this ambition for unstable models, we constructed new metamorphic algorithms. Continuing with this rationale, our algorithm has set a precedent for suffix trees, and we expect that systems engineers will analyze TriflingThamyn for years to come. We expect to see many futurists move to studying TriflingThamyn in the very near future.

So what’s the point?

Just because something is published doesn’t mean it is worth your time. I marvel at the amount being published today. It is more than ever before. And now, with the advent of self-publishing, you don’t even have to impress an editor.

There is nothing inherently wrong with self-publishing, and there may be good reasons to do it.

But the reason may be because you are the only impressed with your writing.

There’s only so much time in this world, so be careful what you read.

And speaking of care, close this browser and do something useful with your life.