Careful whisper

PREFACE: This post is only partially a grumpy man’s emotional outburst: just hear me out on this one…

ABSTRACT: A grumpy man vents about spam emails from random scientific (and sometimes pseudo-scientific) journals.

RELEVANCE OF GEORGE MICHAEL’S PICTURE: Virtually none.

MAIN TEXT: First off, I should say that, luckily, my spam filter works pretty well, so I normally don’t really get to see these messages (except for when I take 5 minutes to check what’s ended up in the spam \(-\) typically these are my 5 minutes of fun…).

But, I find it super-hilarious to read the weird invitations to contribute papers to the most bizarre journals (that is bizarre with respect to my own field of expertise, of course \(-\) they are often good journals, although I think that sometimes the weirdness goes hand in hand with their ridiculousness…).

Anyway, I particularly really, really like when they start the email with something like this:

Dear Dr Gianluca@my email address, [of course, to these people my email address is my full name]

We follow very carefully your research and we are impressed by your scientific production. We would be delighted if you could contribute a paper (possibly within the next 20 minutes) to the Journal of Something that has absolutely nothing to do with Statistics, or Health Economics, or anything you’ve ever done in your life since you were 4 and accidentally sat on your mum’s little cactus and all the spiny stems pricked your bottom. [and that, sadly, is a true story…]

Now, that’s what I call carefully following somebody’s research!

CONCLUSIONS: Incidentally, one of my biggest regrets in life is to have never managed to wear my hair like George Michael. And that’s something I’ve carefully tried to do when I was 14.