In 1974, clinical psychologist Dennis Upper found himself stricken with writer's block. Though pen was to paper, no words would flow. He decided to solve his problem with a scientific experiment. Yet, as is frequently the case in science, his experiment didn't work as intended, and that's putting it euphemistically. Despite the failure, his work, "The unsuccessful self-treatment of a case of “writer's block,” was published in the prestigious Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1901/jaba.1974.7-497a/abstract).
Despite the paper's glaring brevity, Upper's reviewer hailed its brilliance:
The reviewer's comments:
"I have studied this manuscript very carefully with lemon juice and X-rays and have not detected a single flaw in either design or writing style. I suggest it be published without revision. Clearly it is the most concise manuscript I have ever seen-yet it contains sufficient detail to allow other investigators to replicate Dr. Upper's failure. In comparison with the other manuscripts I get from you containing all that complicated detail, this one was a pleasure to examine. Surely we can find a place for this paper in the Journal-perhaps on the edge of a blank page."
Kindly share such scientific jargons
Dear Harpreet,
About 40 years ago I saw a French film (with Jean Pierre Cassel) on a lazy man who decided to write a book on laziness: nice cover and about 200 pages, of course empty pages.
I think – in this case of Dennis Upper – not the author but the editor was a hero.
What about the citations of this article?
Gosh! That was too funny!
Thanks for the levity... and the brevity!
Dear All,
Below is the link to original article
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1901/jaba.1974.7-497a/abstract
This article was able to fetch 30 citations (Source: Google)
This is something like the following story!
'Once upon a time there was a king who died.'
Edmund Gettier wrote a famous 3-page paper entitled: 'Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?' raising counter examples to the traditional view of knowledge. It spawned an industry of scholarship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem
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