RESEARCH

The Top 16 Rejected Scientific Papers

16. Imminent Global Destruction: Why Tea Leone Won't Return My Calls

15. A Study of Who Can Shoot Milk Out of His Nose Farther, Me or My Friend, Matt

14. Charles Nelson Reilly: Testosterone, Androgen and the Hypermasculine of the Species

13. Highway to Hell: The Deadly Link Between Air Guitar and Young Male WASP Traffic Fatalities

12. Post Scripted Annotations of the Reader's Maternal Parent Pertaining to Promiscuous Coital Activities for Remuneration: Your Mother's a Ho

11. Abnormal Behavioral Models of Slacker Office-Publishing Lackeys: Why it Took Me 5 Friggin' Days to Get This Paper Back From Kinkos

10. Turning Crap to Gold: The New QVC Alchemy

9. Spewing Profits: Are the Bath Tissue and Olestra Industries in Bed Together?

8. Effects of a Huge, No-Strings Government Research Grant on Frank Farel of Long Island, NY... About a Million Bucks, Say

7. How Much Fibrous Xylem Could a Marmota Monax Slough if a Marmota Monax Could Slough Fibrous Xylem?

6. Seruc rof aixelsyD

5. WHAM!: Production of Liquid by Means of Manual Stimulation of a Cylinder

4. Ants in my Pants: A Personal Case Study

3. Observed Effects of Viagra on Bone Regeneration

2. Cats, Landings, and the Empire State Building: How High Is TOO High?

1. She Blinded Me With Acid: The Do's and Don'ts of Lab Assistant Harassment

Useful Research Phrases and what they Really Mean

"It has long been known" . . .
[I didn't look up the original reference.]

"A definite trend is evident" . . .
[These data are practically meaningless.]

"Of great theoretical and practical importance" . . .
[Interesting to me.]

"While it has not been possible to provide definite answers
to these questions" . . .
[An unsuccessful experiment but I still have to get it published.]

"Three of the samples were chosen for detailed study" . . .
[The results of the others didn't make any sense.]

"Typical results are shown" . . .
[The best results are shown.]

"These results will be shown in a subsequent report" . . .
[I might get around to this sometime if I'm pushed.]

"The most reliable results are those obtained by Jones" . . .
[He was my graduate assistant.]

"It is believed that" . . .
[I think]

"It is generally believed that" . . .
[A couple of other guys think so, too.]

"It is clear that much additional work will be required before
a complete understanding occurs" . . .
[I don't understand it.]

"Correct within an order of magnitude" . . .
[Wrong]

"It is hoped that this study will stimulate further
investigations in this field" . . .
[This is a lousy paper, but so are all the others on this
miserable topic.]

"Thanks are due to Joe Blotz for assistance with the experiment
and to George Frink for valuable assistance" . . .
[Blotz did the work and Frink explained to me what it meant.]

"A careful analysis of obtainable data" . . .
[Three pages of notes were obliterated when I knocked over a
glass of beer.]

What did the sign on Pavlov's lab door say?

Please knock. DON'T ring the bell.

HOW TO WRITE GOOD
by Frank L. Visco

My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:

  1. Always avoid alliteration.
  2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
  3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
  4. Employ the vernacular.
  5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
  6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
  7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
  8. Contractions aren't necessary.
  9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
  10. One should never generalize.
  11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
  12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
  13. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
  14. Profanity sucks.
  15. Be more or less specific.
  16. Understatement is always best.
  17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
  18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
  19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
  20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
  21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
  22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
  23. Who needs rhetorical questions?

A very shy guy goes into a bar and sees a beautiful woman sitting at the bar. After an hour of gathering up his courage, he finally goes over to her and asks, tentatively, "Um, would you mind if I chatted with you for a while?"

She responds by yelling, at the top of her lungs, "NO! I won't sleep with you tonight!" Everyone in the bar is now staring at them. Naturally, the guy is hopelessly and completely embarrassed and he slinks back to his table.

After a few minutes, the woman walks over to him and apologizes. She smiles at him and says, "I'm sorry if I embarrassed you. You see, I'm a graduate student in psychology, and I'm studying how people respond to embarrassing situations."

To which he responds, at the top of his lungs, "What do you mean $200?!"

A conclusion is simply the place where you got tired of thinking.

Psychology is actually biology.
Biology is actually chemistry.
Chemistry is actually physics.
And physics is actually math.

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