From the Associated Press:

BOSTON -- Three MIT graduate students set out to show what kind of gobbledygook can pass muster at an academic conference, writing a computer program that generates fake, nonsensical papers. And sure enough, a Florida conference took the bait.

The program, developed by students Jeremy Stribling, Max Krohn and Dan Aguayo, generated a paper with the dumbfounding title, "Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy." Its introduction begins: "Many scholars would agree that, had it not been for active networks, the simulation of Lamport clocks might never have occurred."

The program works like the old "Mad Libs" books, generating sentences taken from real papers but leaving many words blank. It fills the blanks with random buzzwords common in computer science. And it adds to the verisimilitude with meaningless charts and graphs.

Earlier this month, the students received word that the 9th World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, scheduled to take place in July in Orlando, accepted the four-page "Rooter" paper. A second bogus submission, "The Influence of Probabilistic Methodologies on Networking," was rejected.

The offer accepting a paper and inviting the students to present it in Orlando was rescinded after word of the hoax got out, and the students were refunded the $390 fee to attend the conference and have the paper published in its proceedings.

ROFLMAO. Hilarious! Of course, that sort of thing would get past me as I don't know the first thing about computers so wouldn't be able to tell a fake from the real thing. But the so-called experts?

This perhaps is strong evidence - if evidence were needed - of the inherent dangers of pretentious, buzzword-filled writing. It generally adds nothing to the value of the paper (taking more away), alienates many people who would otherwise be intelligent enough to grasp its concepts and seems only to massage the ego of the writer. In my opinion!

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This perhaps is strong evidence - if evidence were needed - of the inherent dangers of pretentious, buzzword-filled writing.

I disagree entirely. If anything, it demonstrates the importance of pretentious and buzzword-filled writing: by itself it is enough to get you published.

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If anything, it demonstrates the importance of pretentious and buzzword-filled writing: by itself it is enough to get you published.

I have been on some of those committees where we accept papers for conferences. I am just shocked that something like that could get through.

While I find this plausible and funny, I suspect it of being apocryphal. (See also The Crucial Comma.)

Apropos of nothing in particular, there is a series of papers by the mathematician E.A. Michael titled A note on paracompact spaces, Another note on paracompact spaces, and Yet another note on paracompact spaces. He told me that the next paper in the series, should there be one, would be titled Good Grief! Another note on paracompact spaces.

neveu, it reminds me of the endless Rocky movies. Sheesh! The first one wasn't that good!

Bob, good point. The Brits are always our skpetics! I wonder if Snopes has looked at either of these.

That's what I was thinking...

I SO want this one to be true though, that I have refrained from looking and I'm continuing to believe it .

I tried a couple of searches on snopes for "comma" without finding anything useful, but there may be something in their message board; I haven't had time to check.

Here's the Web site of the three students involved in the hoax - SCIgen - An Automatic CS Paper Generator. You can use it to generate your own paper!

Wow, arnie. I just generated a paper, by you and me, called, "Visualizing Sensor Networks and Telephony Using Webber." Here is our abstract: "RAID must work. In this paper, we validate the study of the Turing machine. We motivate an optimal tool for investigating gigabit switches, which we call Webber."

We are very smart! There are 44 sources, 3 graphs displaying our results, and one model of our theoretical framework. I have a pdf saved, just in case you'd like to see a copy of it. Oh, your name is first, arnie!

Just had a little play with that. I'd love to be able to generate similar gobbledook with the language theory jargon and present it to some of my lecturers to see if they could spot the difference.

But what chance would they have when it would be up against such genuine samples as

"...my purpose is to show how the processes of glabalisation and disembedding that are characteristic of contemporary society are realised through discursive practices and bureaucratic literacy practices... and ... how written texts and literacy practices are constituative of the social practices of organisation and control as they are realised by transnational bureaucratic systems."

or

"This chapter is based on a longitudinal study of Canadian university students engaged in course-based student-moderated on-campus credit-level asynchronous computer conferencing."

or my old favourite that I recall quoting before

"within incarcerative environments theoretical aspects of literacy and prison need to be seen beyond the binary contexts of autonomous singularity or social multiplicities."

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I'd love to be able to generate similar gobbledook with the language theory jargon and present it to some of my lecturers to see if they could spot the difference.

Oh, Bob, great! I thought the same about a fake medical research article!

I see the Brits use that pesky "disembedding" word too. I have a committee member who used it in every other sentence, and when he'd leave we'd "disembed" the whole office!

The only true comment about these kinds of submissions is - remember the "BBB" (mouse over) Bullshit Baffles Brains

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Oh, your name is first, arnie!

I am truly honoured.

It appears that SCI (to whom the fake paper was submitted) is not a particularly reputable academic body. See this page.

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The organisers of the conference invite the contributors to pay the registration fee, with a separate fee for each accepted paper, and state it is not necessary to attend so long as the publication fee is paid -- a highly unusual practice. I have repeatedly requested the referees' reports, but there has been no response. The organisers have however rapidly responded to queries about the financial arrangements. Although this conference may well be legitimate, the reviewing process appears to be nonexistent and the statements in the call-for-papers misleading.

and

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It is questionable that this is "a non-profitable international organization". It appears to be a for-profit corporation registered in the State of Florida, USA, where it is registered as the International Institute of Informatics & Cybernatics, Inc.

I would have gathered that, arnie, but thanks for the specifics. As I have said, I have been involved in accepting papers for conferences, and it is quite a stringent process, with the readers being experts in the area of the paper. That means that we have seen most of the sources cited and know if they are accurately cited. The problem in medical related academics is the making up of data. There have been several scandals of that from prestigious universities where the professors, supposedly under pressure (big excuse in my mind!), have made up data in order to be able to publish their results. One of these scandals involved breast cancer research, and the journal had to recant the authors' findings. Quite embarrassing...and it could have affected people's lives.

Mark Liberman at Language Log also delved into the bona fides of these so-called experts who were prepared to accept anything.

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While I find this plausible and funny, I suspect it of being apocryphal.

Well, Bob, it looks like this one was real.

Aput, I missed this post. What an excellent analysis of Professor Callaos's (the "professor" who accepted the paper at the "spamference.") In one of the links, I loved this description of Callaos's rationalization for accepting the paper that turned out to be a hoax: "Callaos wrote back with a mindboggling rambling rationalization [pdf], written in full-bore buzzwordia academica."

I will have to use "full-bore buzzwordia academia" again!

BTW, I also liked the term spamference. Is this really a word or was it coined for this hoax?

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