A number of so-called scientific journals have accepted a Star Wars-themed spoof paper. The manuscript is an absurd mess of factual errors, plagiarism and movie quotes. I know because I wrote it.
Inspired by previous publishing “stings”, I wanted to test whether ‘predatory‘ journals would publish an obviously absurd paper. So I created a spoof manuscript about “midi-chlorians” – the fictional entities which live inside cells and give Jedi their powers in Star Wars. I filled it with other references to the galaxy far, far away, and submitted it to nine journals under the names of Dr Lucas McGeorge and Dr Annette Kin.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiODxMEDjUMACtQNveE7Exh8cFcK_pNHdNaLQp4a7yxVsCrv6Kp3gMLzWxTp2eCvi2WuGGE3oNsanWwljG_QwSDZ_bvEUaX8qgHM3kT2kWFhjVYsjX8oCew4_84yw8qgyCa8B5C8uecENBY/s320/ewok_girl_behind.jpg)
Four journals fell for the sting. The American Journal of Medical and Biological Research (SciEP) accepted the paper, but asked for a $360 fee, which I didn’t pay. Amazingly, three other journals not only accepted but actually published the spoof. Here’s the paper from the International Journal of Molecular Biology: Open Access (MedCrave), Austin Journal of Pharmacology and Therapeutics (Austin) and American Research Journal of Biosciences (ARJ) I hadn’t expected this, as all those journals charge publication fees, but I never paid them a penny.
So what did they publish? A travesty, which they should have rejected within about 5 minutes – or 2 minutes if the reviewer was familiar with Star Wars. Some highlights . . .
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi52GsFOuTlFOjAC1FbvxqgJMW9pZWf-WRRo5Pevrn2qWh-dj5bPYCWMwBJ4YbK5CGiGxf9yuWEGuBhV8TeLN2LA6tswDDRmy0iQqWJv7Iy035qbKzo_oGEQDv-luk9EniSiJk3_CqLZJa1/s320/Sith_1.jpg)
To generate the main text of the paper, I copied the Wikipedia page on ‘mitochondrion’ (which, unlike midichlorians, exist) and then did a simple find/replace to turn mitochondr* into midichlor*. I then Rogeted the text, i.e. I reworded it (badly), because the main focus of the sting was on whether journals would publish a ridiculous paper, not whether they used a plagiarism detector (although Rogeting is still plagiarism in my book.)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIc-MCWP_oCqsjYhlgbt_KzvRg3cbmZ7WlWA6SIlKQlfGwITaOBtD_fZAHSUDXIn7G7Cmzq3Ayd60_dtt6RKXd9t3ZARE8iaW9iyEKGFo1KhzPoIZ8axUoDsQqWlCfBUz2CD9e2LzTARNb/s320/Screen-Shot-2015-12-17-at-4.41.27-PM.png)
For transparency, I admitted what I’d done in the paper itself. The Methods section features the line “The majority of the text of this paper was Rogeted [7]”. Reference 7 cited an article on Rogeting followed by “The majority of the text in the current paper was Rogeted from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion Apologies to the original authors of that page.”It seems like the value of peer review has run its course. What started as cause, became a chore, and devolved into a scam. We are now in a situation where it would be better to post things on line personally, and notify anyone you think would be interested.
Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Burger Girls" ready at The Other McCain.
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