Jargon or Gibberish?

Abstract

Understanding the titles of scientific papers can be as difficult as \_\_\_| (verb ending in -ing) a \\_\_\_|\_ (noun), which is what makes the online game arXiv vs. snarXiv ( ) so frustratingly addictive. The game challenges players to tell the titles of genuine papers published on the preprint archive arxiv.org from ones generated by a computer program using a Mad Libs–based algorithm. David Simmons-Duffin, a physics Ph.D. student at Harvard University and the game's creator, says he was worried that scientists would take offense at seeing their names listed as authors of the nonsense papers. But researchers are now asking to be added to the game.