Image: Sun Records compilation; photo © Chris Light CC BY-SA 4.0
Most scientific papers (and definitely most of mine) are pretty dull. That is, the results may be important and interesting, but the papers themselves – the text – tend to be dry, colourless, even tedious. That’s partly because we work so hard to remove authorial voice; it’s partly because we favour complex passive-voice constructions laden with jargon and acronyms; and it’s partly because we avoid humour like the plague. At least, most of the time.
I say “most of the time” because everyone can point to an example or two of a paper that includes a joke. Continue reading
