Bait Me

X. Kuvador, R. Kialugist, and Pael E. O’Ntolojiss

While we are all safely ensconced in varying levels of The Ivory Tower™, it has come to our attention that many are struggling to have their research read and respected. While the first of these quests has never much interested those within our field—in fact, the less some research is read, the more it is respected—we understand that some people still entertain a bizarre wish to actually have people take an interest in their work. Over coffee in the SpecGram planetarium/coffee plaza, we heard the interns gabbing about the power of the “Internet” to publicize research and how titles can be classified as “clickbait” or “boring.” As an example of how to make research “popular”, we therefore present to you a selection of paper titles recast as “clickbait”.

As an hors d’œuvre, we have a batch of eight articles and books that already have perfectly clickbaity titles, but just need a little eye-candy to capture potential readers’ attention: an eye-catching image, arbitrary numbers (to give the reader a sense of accomplishment), Monotonous Capitalization, and randomly sprinkled OMGWTFBBQ-style flair. The source/author is provided for each; for proper clickbaitification, no such information should be given, unless the author is a rockstar of, at minimum, Pinkeresque proportions.

First, some examples from SpecGram:

Examples from elsewhere in Linguistics Land (shown here without links—unless you are getting paid beaucoup dinero, never provide external links!):

And now to the main dish—a clickbaitification of a couple dozen book and article titles. The observant linguist should be able to induce a simple grammar of clickbaitification from these examples. As before, in observance of and in accordance with “academic norms”, original titles and authors are provided in the smallest font we are allowed to use. First we have some examples from SpecGram and related media.

And for dessert, a few non-SpecGram examples:

	From Mwahaha to Bwahaha: Some Observations on Evil Laughter—Lady Esmerelda Rose Beeton-Frasier
	Research Assistants Are Being Paid
	SpecGram Vol CLXXVII, No 4 Contents