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When one walks into this world still a youngster, research is like an adventure: great expectations but barely any idea about its reality. Unfortunately, this world also has its demons and the newbie is more than likely to fall into a whole bunch of them before becoming the suspicious little b***tard that survives the scientific career. However, an open mind also gives many rewards and not taking ourselves too seriously may make life so much more interesting ... There is more to heaven and earth than is dreamt of in your ... research. And here is a go. Feel free to contribute to this section, I have a taste for the unusual :)

Or, beware of greeks bearing gifts. When something is too good to be true, it's because it is false.

• The scam-ferences: Have you ever received an invitation to the World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics in Orlando? Well, be warned, you probably will. And, most likely, not one, but 4 or 5 a year. There is this Nagib Callaos guy who, apparently, invites you personally to every subconference in the event because, it seems, you are an expert in every field he knows. But, wait a second ... then, you are not. It takes the average researcher no more than 3 mails (usually in an interval of 1 hour) to realize that this is an infamous scam-ference, or, in other words, the classic scam of the south-african bank, only with papers. The issue here is that, as long as you pay, they will accept your paper. Apparently, without reading it. Three guys in MIT decided they had the time to build an automatic Computer Science paper generator, which works like any of those Dan Brown plot generators (or like Celine Dion's song writer, apparently). You just introduce the authors' names and get a perfect CS paper ... only it is just a lot of mumbo-jumbo that any reviewer spots in a few seconds. Of course, the WMCSCI has no reviewers, just a cash machine. These people managed to get a paper accepted in the conference, laughted at Callaos himself and exposed the scam for the world in here. I strongly recommend undergrad students to read the full story, so they know what they can find out there. One could think that publishing a paper is well worth a few hundred bucks, but the true nature of scam-ferences is well known and it one has been so naive as to attend one, it would pay him better to hide it from the CV, so they can not make fun of him. Even though the story is a laugth, the existence of these scam-ferences is a sad reality. The organizers make big money of the desire of people to publish fast and easy, but accepted papers will never be referenced by anyone serious in the field. Fortunately, some people is gathering information on these scam-ferences for us. For example, the Fake Conferences blog exposes many of them. Be warned: it is better to be rejected in a top conference than accepted in a fake one :P

• Predatory journals: Similar to the scam-ferences, only this time it's journals. Actually, if you are a scientist, you most likely work for free (and grateful too) for journals, since you don't get any money for writing, yet they do get money for selling your work. That's the system for you. As if this was not enough, now here comes the next system abuse: Open Journals. Since journals believed that they were not getting enough money for free with their subscriptions since Internet became massively used, they decided that now YOU have to pay to publish. And it's not cheap, mind you, we are talking about thousands of dollars. In exchange, your paper will be openly available on-line. Up to this point, the approach is abusive, yet legal. However, since opening a website it's almost free, there have been a boom of questionable, scholarly open-access publishers that do not even review the papers they receive: as long as you pay, you're in. These journals will usually pester you with mails about your (presumed) excellence in this field or another and how they would love to publish your wonderful research. I'd also like people to give me money for free, mind you. Many people have exposed such journals by sending rubbish and getting it published without further comments (e.g. see here) Of course, publishing there or in a friend's wall in Facebook is academically the same. Here is a list of known predatory journals, too.

• The Oxford English approach to reviews: While I have myself reviewed papers for journals or conferences with a really atrocious english, most of us non-native speakers have found one (usually more :P) of these dreaded reviews: "Use of English language needs to be improved" or basically the same idea with uglier words. At some point, most of us have also decided on using just simple sentences: noun+verb+predicate, third person, present. Nothing more, nothing else. Furthermore, when you pass the paper to some native speaker, they usually comment that your English is not that bad. So ... what has really happened here? Whereas some reviewers just mean to help you with spelling and grammar and even point out what mistakes you have made, I've noticed a trend in these "english" reviews: they are often related to the infamous "third reviewer" issue, i.e. two of your reviewers find your paper perfectly suitable for publication, whereas the third one rejects it in a most definitive manner. While I do not claim that my English is perfect, these reviews are either i) empty of any other content or ii) full of references to "other" works in the field that you've failed to refer or have criticized a little too much in the reviewer's opinion. The logical conclusion is that either: the reviewer has no idea on the subject and no intention on learning about it or he has published some work on the area that he believes deserves better treatment by your clearly inferior paper. In any case, you're done there. Even if you check whatever this person comments and try to resubmit, you're done. Complaining to the editor won't do much good either, so it is better to move on and try some other journal.