From: "Dr. H**** Z*****"

To: kprevas

Subject: Request to review a paper for [conference]

Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 09:25:07 -0400

Dear Dr. [kprevas],

You are a well-known expert in modular robots. Could you or one of your associates kindly review a paper for [conference]? If you are not available to review the paper, could you kindly suggest someone to review the paper? The paper's content can be obtained from the link below.

Please give me a reply.

H**** Z*****

Associate Editor.

Wow! I'm a well-known expert in modular robots!

I get things like this from time to time, always for conferences in Asia, but they're usually not quite so obsequious. Some of you may not be regular readers, so let's go over two important points.

• Dr. [kprevas] is my dad, or my mom. I have but a lowly master's degree.

• I don't know a damn thing about robots.