Publishing philosophy
- Posted by Andrew Bailey on Friday, October 15, 2004 at 3:35 PM
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Philosophers pride themselves on the meritocracy that is blind review. No one looking over a paper for journal publication knows who wrote the piece; this is a sound idea, I think, and a great way to mitigate the good-old-boys-club mentality that inevitably forms around those with influence, travel money (to attend all the right conferences), and expensive pedigrees from top-10 departments.
Nonetheless, professional philosophy journals are a tough nut to crack. A number of factors contribute jointly to make the acquisition of a solid publication record just about impossible for those in smaller (teaching-focused) schools, families, and non-philosophical commitments.
Getting solid journal articles published is the key to academic tenure; it is thus a buyers’ market out there. Editors are inundated with enough submissions to give little regard to any given piece under review. Consequently, some practices have emerged which make entry into the discipline even more difficult:
Unreasonable review periods. Peer review is great. Blind review is even better. Taking a year and a half to do it is not. Most notably, Mind has gotten a rep for taking of upwards of one or two years to make an editorial decision on an article under review. This is unprofessional, rude, and potentially deadly to the career of young philosophers.
No concurrent submissions. Unlike other fields (law, most notably), submitting a paper to more than one journal at once is a big no-no. This puts authors at the mercy of (sometimes) arbitrary editorial decisions received months or years after submission. Many philosophers have worked hundreds of hours on an article, submitted it to an A-list journal, waited a year, only to receive a terse rejection notice. The process continues on down the food chain (send the piece off to a B-list journal, wait for a response)… All this takes time, and that’s something many junior professors don’t have; the tenure clocks are ticking, and a publication and presentation record is integral to the project.
Anonymous review. Peer review is great. Blind review is even better. Anonymous reviewers can be troubling however. Behind a veil of ignorance, they wield the keys to the kingdom, and there is little accountability over their editorial decisions.
