2703: Paper Title

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Paper Title
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT: The authors hope these results are correct because we all want to be cool people who are good at science.
Title text: CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT: The authors hope these results are correct because we all want to be cool people who are good at science.

Explanation

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A scientific paper usually present a hypothesis and the result of testing the hypothesis. Scientific papers also have titles which describe the content of the papers. Or should do.

Transcript

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Paper title

Check out this cool microbe we found


Isn’t science supposed to be about formulating a hypothesis and then testing it?

Oh. Yeah, I guess.


Paper title

Is our lab really good at finding cool microbes? Some preliminary data

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Discussion

Finished transcript added clickbait category and started the explanation on clickbait titles and title text. For sure it needs to be revised, but hope it can be used to build upon. --Kynde (talk) 22:47, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

You know you've been editing too long when the captcha shows you traffic lights within walking distance. 172.70.211.145 23:39, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Technically the bacterium in reference [3], Candidatus Thiomargarita magnifica, isn't a microbe. But Frigoriflavimonas asaccharolytica in reference [4] is indisputably cool. 172.71.158.91 05:05, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

I don’t understand the claim that the title text disclaimer means that their intrinsic motivation aligns with the goal of producing high quality work. High quality work in general, yes, but not in this case? I mean, the study concerns wether they are good at finding cool microbes, while they have an intrinsic motivation to be good at it. Doesn’t this mean that their desire to be good may cause them to overrate their goodness in their study of their own goodness? —While False (museum | talk | contributions | logs | rights | printable version | page information | what links there | related changes | Google search | current time: 01:47) 05:42, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

I wonder if the person who wrote the interpretation was considering Cueball's original title, since that wouldn't motivate them to lie about their abilities, and an accurate description of the "cool microbe" would be executing their desire to be "good at science". But I agree that the joke seems to stem from the updated title, where their abilities are the hypothesis under question.162.158.107.245 14:56, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm getting an Alex Trebek vibe here — "I'm sorry, we can't accept that since you did not put it in the form of a question." RAGBRAIvet (talk) 04:35, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

I didn't read the paper title as being clickbait (or puffery) at all, just informal and playful. How is "cool microbe" deceitful or misleading? If anything, most scientists would probably be less likely to read (or even find) a paper with that title, I imagine. Same type of humor as 2456: Types of Scientific Paper 172.71.102.215 08:06, 29 November 2022 (UTC)