2009-08-31
Original: 2009-08-31 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Title: HOW SCIENCE PUBLISHING WORKS:
Panel 1: Three people sit around a conference table. A woman with red hair and glasses holds a paper.
Red-haired woman: "This is the best paper we've ever written! It'll get into any top tier journal easily."
A bald man across the table: "Wait. If we split the information into two papers, we can publish twice!"
Panel 2: Close-up of the group. A dark-skinned man in a purple shirt smiles.
Dark-skinned man: "Hold on... if we subdivide those two papers, we can get published four times."
Panel 3: Caption banner: "SOON..."
The group stands at a whiteboard. The board is titled "Career Advancement potential" with a bell-shaped curve. Y-axis: "QUANTITY OF PAPERS". X-axis: "QUALITY OF PAPERS". A scribbled equation in the corner reads roughly "y''' = -cos(x)...".
Panel 4: Back at the table, the red-haired woman holds a paper.
Red-haired woman: "You know, this theory of paper division might have some mathematical novelties. I bet we could publish."
Panel 5:
Dark-skinned man: "Or if we split it... we could publish twice."
The red-haired woman grins.
Panel 6: Caption banner: "ELSEWHERE..."
A doctor with a head mirror stands holding a clipboard beside an elderly patient in a hospital bed.
Elderly patient: "Any word on that new tumor treatment?"
Doctor (looking grim): "Science doesn't happen over night!"
Votey: A rougher black-and-white sketch panel. Two of the researchers lean close together.
One researcher: "Or, I could upload six single panel com-"
The other, interrupting emphatically: "NO!"
Panel 1: Three people sit around a conference table. A woman with red hair and glasses holds a paper.
Red-haired woman: "This is the best paper we've ever written! It'll get into any top tier journal easily."
A bald man across the table: "Wait. If we split the information into two papers, we can publish twice!"
Panel 2: Close-up of the group. A dark-skinned man in a purple shirt smiles.
Dark-skinned man: "Hold on... if we subdivide those two papers, we can get published four times."
Panel 3: Caption banner: "SOON..."
The group stands at a whiteboard. The board is titled "Career Advancement potential" with a bell-shaped curve. Y-axis: "QUANTITY OF PAPERS". X-axis: "QUALITY OF PAPERS". A scribbled equation in the corner reads roughly "y''' = -cos(x)...".
Panel 4: Back at the table, the red-haired woman holds a paper.
Red-haired woman: "You know, this theory of paper division might have some mathematical novelties. I bet we could publish."
Panel 5:
Dark-skinned man: "Or if we split it... we could publish twice."
The red-haired woman grins.
Panel 6: Caption banner: "ELSEWHERE..."
A doctor with a head mirror stands holding a clipboard beside an elderly patient in a hospital bed.
Elderly patient: "Any word on that new tumor treatment?"
Doctor (looking grim): "Science doesn't happen over night!"
Votey: A rougher black-and-white sketch panel. Two of the researchers lean close together.
One researcher: "Or, I could upload six single panel com-"
The other, interrupting emphatically: "NO!"
Alt text
A six-panel SMBC comic titled "How science publishing works." Three researchers sit at a conference table; a red-haired woman with glasses calls a paper the best they've ever written. A bald colleague suggests splitting the information into two papers to publish twice; a dark-skinned man in purple proposes subdividing those into four. A 'SOON...' panel shows them at a whiteboard graphing 'Career Advancement potential' as a curve of 'Quantity of papers' versus 'Quality of papers,' with a math equation scribbled beside it. They keep recursively proposing to split papers to publish more. A final 'ELSEWHERE...' panel cuts to a doctor at a hospital bedside telling an elderly patient awaiting a tumor treatment, 'Science doesn't happen over night!' The joke skewers how publish-count incentives diverge from actual scientific progress. Votey: a rough sketch of two researchers leaning together; one starts to say 'Or, I could upload six single panel com-' and the other cuts them off with an emphatic 'NO!'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.