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Ratiocination

Philosophy Publication (Part I)


There are many facets to the world of professional academic philosophy: teaching, promotion/tenure, conferences, networking, and the like. Perhaps more important than any of these, however, is the area of publication. As in other academic disciplines, publishing plays a dominant role in the life of a philosophical scholar. Except at schools which heavily emphasize teaching, those who publish survive, and those who don't, perish.

Publication is the gateway to employment, job security (tenure), professional advancement, and a host of other valuable things. Editors and referees for professional journals and book presses hold the keys to this gateway, so it's important to understand how they work and the general process. Most broadly, the process of paper publication looks something like this:

1. A paper, prepared for blind review (without identifying information), is sent to an editor with an abstract, contact information, and a cover letter or note indicating that the paper in question is under submission for journal such-and-such. Increasingly, this stage happens electronically; Philosophical Studies uses an elaborate online submission-and-review web application to manage their incoming papers, for example. Papers at this stage rarely conform in detail to the style guidelines (for footnotes and such) of the journal, though it's a good idea to get as close as possible, provided that it doesn't take that much more work.

2. Within days, the author recieves notification of paper reciept. At this point, the editor (or sometimes an assistant editor) makes an initial judgement call on the quality of the paper. If it is full of obvious errors, does not meet the clear-cut content guidelines of the journal, or is unambiguously unsuitable for publication, the paper is rejected and the author is quickly notified. Grammatical and spelling errors and "writing like a student" are good ways to fail this stage of the process. In my experience, confident, error-free (the obvious kind of errors, at least) writing that looks sufficiently rigorous, technical, or competent in the literature is sufficient to gain passage to the next stage.

Some journals remove all identifying information at the pre-review stage: an administrative worker processes all papers and assigns them a number or identifier and passes these completely anonymous manuscripts on to the editor. Other journals are blind only at the referee stage. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some editors may choose to google the author's name and learn a bit more about him/her before even making the initial decision.

3. More suitable papers are sent on to reviewers, typically a member of the journal's editorial committee who specializes in whatever field the paper is in. When submitting a paper, one can get a good idea of who might be a referee by at least two methods: first, check the inside cover of the journal and note the names of philosophers listed in the editorial board who specialize in the field the paper is in. Second, google for philosophers who list refereeing for the journal in question in the "professional service" portion of their curriculum vitae. Either method may yield productive results which may inform the stylistic direction the paper might take to maximize success. Reviewers are almost always volunteer workers and "blind"--they recieve no compensation and do not know the name or affiliation of the author. This is designed to be a strictly meritocratic system, based on quality of work, not mere reputation. For people like me (an unknown and unsung undergraduate student), this is a god-send. After accepting a paper for publication and discovering my institutional affiliation and student status, one editor recently wrote to me, "Then allow me to offer additional congratulations -- yours is the first paper submitted by an undergraduate to be accepted for publication... If you don't mind me saying so, that's quite an accomplishment, as our reviewing process is very rigorous and strictly meritocratic, and our refusal rate accordingly is quite high." I get the feeling that if he knew I was an undergraduate before reading the positive referee report, he might not have been so receptive of the paper (understandably). I thus conclude that blind review works!

Some journals will send papers on to more than one reviewer, others only one.

Blind review is a little less than completely blind, of course. Through the power of google, some referees may discover the author of a paper in their hands by searching for key phrases or new technical vocabulary. Not posting your CV or paper drafts to the web is one way to keep this from happening, but the price paid by this course of action is potentially high (missing potential exposure to interested audiences and the accompanying professional advancement). The referee may gain this knowledge much more innocently, too, if s/he has seen the paper presented at a conference and so-forth.

4. Review takes place. The referee reads the paper and provides comments on it, with a recommendation to the editor as to the publication-suitability of the piece. I note that referees are moved by a number of factors to be particularly uncharitable at this stage. First, they are anonymous, as far as prospective authors are concerned, so harsh comments are almost entirely without professional consequences. Second, there may be pressure from the editor(s) to refuse a high rate of papers. The most prestigeous journals accept very few papers for publication, and, if anecdotal evidence has any weight, "quotas" are not unheard of such that reviewers are encouraged to refuse a certain percentage of papers they look at. In this way, the dice are stacked against even high quality papers. That is to say, if you get a really biting referee report, think about the critique carefully, but don't let it get you down; it's apparently fairly common. I note that my experience has been almost entirely positive; with only one exception, reviewer comments have been constructive, helpful, and courteous. (See this post of mine from last year for further analysis.)

5. Editorial review of the referee report takes place. The recommendation of the referee is usually followed, but the editor is under no obligation. If the editor likes the paper, it may survive a negative referee report all the way to publication. If the editor does not like the paper, no matter what the referees say, it will most likely not be published. Knowing an editor's preferences is important, then; they really do hold the keys to the kingdom (or some of them, at least).

6. An editorial decision is made and delivered to the author. Papers may be accepted as-is, provisionally accepted (given that certain changes are made), rejected with an encouragement to resubmit (given that certain changes are made) or rejected flat-out. Comments from referees will sometimes be sent to prospective authors, although editors are under no obligation to do this. The level of detail provided in these comments varies widely.

The time between steps two and six can be anywhere from three weeks to six months, and, in some circumstances, even beyond the one-year mark.

7. If accepted for publication, a paper will eventually appear in the pages of a journal. Eventually. Before that happens, it's merely "forthcoming." Authors are at this juncture required to provide a final draft which exactly conforms to the stylistic guidelines of the journal--all the way down to technical notation, footnotes, spelling, and punctuation. They are sent an author agreement and copyright release form to sign. Just before going to press, type-set proofs are sent to authors who must review them and reply to the editorial office (usually within 72 hours or so) with any corrections. Realistically, actually showing up in a print edition of the journal takes months, and sometimes years, to happen after the initial acceptance letter, since most journals have a backlog of papers awaiting publication. Authors usually recieve a few free copies of the issue their article appears in, a PDF file, and a few dozen hard copy off-prints of the final typeset article. This is the sole compensation authors recieve; only in very rare circumstances will professional philosophy journals pay their authors in any other form.

In conclusion: there are a number of hoops to jump through, but in the end it's worth it. If one plays by the rules of the game, one can author a paper published in an obscure academic journal (given a few years of waiting, of course) that approximately thirteen people will read. You might even hit the big time and get your work read by upwards of two-dozen specialists! Welcome to the world of academic philosophy.

In Part II, I review some valuable web resources for prospective philosophy authors.

1 Comments:

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Katherine at 11:03 PM  said... hey man, nice template. =)