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Academic units

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posted on 2025-04-17, 08:02 authored by Matthew PartridgeMatthew Partridge

This cartoon is a flow diagram advising academics on how to choose units of measurement. It humorously suggests inventing a new unit if the science is groundbreaking or resorting to obscure units when the data is uncertain.

History

Creation date

2016-03-23

AltText

Flow diagram on choosing standard or obscure units for academic measurements.

Transcript

What units should you use? A guide for academics Is this a cutting-edge new science? Are you sure? Go check the literature again Yay, invent a new unit and name it after yourself Crap I found some papers Not really Is there a commonly used unit in other papers? Yes Is your data good? Yes Use the common units and be smug about how good your data is 2.6 (dull / boring) Err Pick the most obscure unit you can find 2.6 (stoats lengths / gram)

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    ErrantScience

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    Keywords

    academiaunitsmeasurmentsErrantScienceCartoonHumorComicWebcomic

    Licence

    CC BY-NC 4.0

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