Remember the xkcd comic Types of Scientific Paper from April 2021?* It went immediately viral on Twitter with loads of people posting their own versions of their own academic field; Cory Doctorow called it catnip for scientists. The reaction was even written up in the Atlantic by Benjamin Mazer.
I simply could not resist a superb opportunity for satire; here is my version, ‘Types of Fab Lab Research Paper:**
You can make your own using this meme-maker by Guillaume Levrier.
Here are some great ones on Twitter:
‘Types of Political Ecology Paper’***
(Edited to add title and ALT text.)
Edited: In March 2024, the author of the twitter post above posted on Mastodon that they had deleted their tweets and twitter account but that they had posted the meme on Zenodo.
Here is the image of Types of Sustainability Science Papers****
Citation: Angst, M. (2021). Sustainability Science Papers: Image accompanying social media post. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10868740
‘Types of “Types of Scientific Paper” Meme’*****
(Edited to add title and ALT text.)
*Alt-Text for Randall Munroe’s original:
WE PUT A CAMERA SOMEWHERE NEW
HEY, I FOUND A TROVE OF OLD RECORDS! THEY DON’T TURN OUT TO BE PARTICULARLY USEFUL, BUT STILL, COOL!
MY COLLEAGUE IS WRONG AND I CAN FINALLY PROVE IT
THE IMMUNE SYSTEM IS AT IT AGAIN
WE FIGURED OUT HOW TO MAKE THIS EXOTIC MATERIAL, SO EMAIL US IF YOU NEED SOME
WHAT ARE FISH EVEN DOING DOWN THERE
THIS TASK I HAD TO DO ANYWAY TURNED OUT TO BE HARD ENOUGH FOR ITS OWN PAPER
HEY, AT LEAST WE SHOWED THAT THIS METHOD CAN PRODUCE RESULTS! THAT’S NOT NOTHING, RIGHT?
CHECK OUT THIS WEIRD THING ONE OF US SAW WHILE OUT FOR A WALK
WE ARE 500 SCIENTISTS AND HERE’S WHAT WE’VE BEEN UP TO FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS
SOME THOUGHTS ON HOW EVERYONE ELSE IS BAD AT RESEARCH
WE SCANNED SOME UNDERGRADUATES
**Alt-Text for my version:
We Printed This Amazing Thing, Like This
Results of a Survey of One Thousand Fab Labs Because We’re Sociologists with Research Funding
We Studied Entrepreneurship in This Fab Lab and Look How Amazing It Was
Fab Labs are the Future of Work Where No One Gets Paid
Here is What We Learned in a Survey of 10 Grumpy Fab Lab Managers with Survey-Fatigue
We Made This Amazing Interactive Design, Like This
Children Learn Better With Materials in Classrooms Called Makerspaces
The Fab Lab Maker Movement Appears to be Localizing Production But We’re Not Entirely Sure
The Performance of Multidisciplinarity and Innovation in Fab Labs
Making Open Culture Even More Openly in Library and Museum Maker Fab Labs
Makers Responded Very Quickly to PPE Shortages!
How To Use Sensors in One Hundred Thousand Ways
***Alt-Text for TYPES OF POLITICAL ECOLOGY PAPER
THE POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF…[WHERE THE TERM HAS NEVER BEEN USED BEFORE]
DIAMON AND HOMER-DIXON WERE WRONG. (BY PELUSO AND WATTS)
WE KNOW WHAT ‘POLITICAL ONTOLOGY’ MEANS
EVERYTHING IS SCALED (BY P. BLAIKIE)
PREVIOUS RESEARCHERS DIDN’T DO INTERSECTIONAL ANALYSIS AND WE DID MORE FIELDWORK TOO
PROTECTED AREAS DON’T WORK
WE SUBMITTED A VERSION TO J OF PEASANT STUDIES AND THEY REJECTED IT SO WE REPLACED ‘AGRARIAN CHANGE’ WITH ‘POLITICAL ECOLOGY’ AND HERE WE ARE
SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCE AND RESILIENCE THINKING DON’T RECOGNISE POWER INEQUALITIES
FORGET THE GREEN ECONOMY AND THE SDGs, WE NEED A REVOLUTION
CAPITALISM AND TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS ARE REALLY BEGINNING TO TICK US OFF
THE BLUE ECONOMY, WINDFARMS, DAMS, MINES, HIGHWAYS AND PORTS CREATE ‘ACCUMULATION BY DISPOSSESSION’
DEGROWTH IS GOOD AND HERE IS ONE TINY EXAMPLE OF IT IN ACTION
**** Alt-Text for TYPES OF SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCE PAPER
A new framework to organize frameworks about human-nature relations
Eating meat is bad
It’s capitalism’s fault
The economists did not let me publish my degrowth stuff
Turns out businesses are not as green as they claim to be
Here are many different scenarios for the future. Now go cry.
We went to this island and did some workhshops with fishermen and the government. They just don’t get it.
This anthropocene concept is mindblowing
Academia sucks, that’s why we wrote a paper about it
A social-ecological-art-dentistry reflection on interdisciplinary challenges
You say activist, I say transdisciplinarity
I have a PhD in sustainability science. I still do not know what it is.
*****Alt-Text for TYPES OF “TYPES OF SCIENTIFIC PAPER” MEME
I AM RANDALL MUNROE AND I HAVE NOT IDEA HOW MUCH SCIENTISTS WILL LOVE THIS
TYPES OF PAPERS IN MY RESEARCH FIELD
TYPES OF PAPERS IN MY NARROW SUBFIELD
TYPES OF PAPERS I WROTE
COULDN’T HELP MYSELF
AM I DOING THIS RIGHT?
I HAVE A PAPER DEADLINE TOMORROW SO HERE IS A VERSION FOR MY FIELD
PEOPLE IN MY FIELD MAKING THEIR VERSIONS ARE DOING IT WRONG SO HERE IS MY OWN
OH, THIS IS ACTUALLY WHAT I’VE BEEN UP TO FOR THE PAST 20 YEARS [below which shows one of the examples from Munroe’s original comic, ‘WE SCANNED SOME UNDERGRADUATES’]
