Dealing with post-publication anxiety

An early-career reader writes in:

I’ve been wondering how one deals with post-publication anxiety. After my first publication, I felt a great deal of anxiety and dread: I couldn’t bear looking at my paper (knowing all the changes I wish I would have made) and it was easy for me to think that my paper was just bad, that it somehow slipped through the cracks of the peer-review process. I feared the paper would eventually get read and word would spread about how lame the paper was and that my career would tank before it even got started. (To be sure, this certainly has happened to people, so why couldn’t it happen to me?!)

 

Do most people feel this way after publishing for the first time? Do people still feel this way after their nth-publication? How do you deal with it? What do you tell yourself?

 

This is a great query, and I'm very curious to hear how readers answer!

 

I have a bunch of thoughts about this, as I have particular attitudes (indeed, a bit of a philosophy) about publishing. I don't pretend that my philosophy here is the right or best one (even in my own case). I simply mean to report how I approach things and why (okay, to be fair, I do offer advice below, but I am well aware it may not be right!).

When I got my first publication, I was just happy I published something. I desperately needed a permanent job, and that empty line on my CV haunted me. So I never really worried much about how it would be received. I was just happy I had something. More generally, I've always been more future oriented than past oriented, and one of my favorite quotes I've come across is this one by CS Lewis: "You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start from where you are and change the ending."

 

Back in grad school, I knew perfectionists who thought it vitally important to get things perfect before trying to publish. I don't think any of those people are now in the profession. Why? Well, for many reasons perhaps (including the annually awful job-market), but I do think perfectionism probably had something to do with it. Steve Jobs famously said, "Real artists ship." I'm not an admirer of Jobs' character in general, but I've always thought him right about this. You're not going to get anywhere by sitting on your work. You need to get it out, and if you do, you're going to take some risks and make some mistakes--perhaps even some embarrassing ones. Lord knows Jobs did. And Lord knows even the greatest philosophers did. Kant's universalizability tests in the Groundwork? Sorry, but they are simply epic fails. Everyone makes mistakes. Even the most influential philosophy books and articles we read typically (in my view) have terrible mistakes. Is it possible that word will get around that your paper is bad? Perhaps, but it's worth reminding oneself that:

1. Your paper probably isn't terrible (it made it past peer-review, and most papers that do are at least competent).
2. Many of the very best works in history initially received awful reviews (I gave a pretty long list here).
3. Even if your paper is bad, there's little reason to believe it will be career-defining, provided you do other good work.

Let me say a little more about (3). One thing to bear in mind is that there are a few things that are likely to happen after you publish something:

1. Your work may not gain any attention whatsoever (which sucks if your work is good, of course, but not if it's bad!)
2. Your work may get some citations and a little discussion but nothing much beyond that (same as above).
3. Your work may get a lot of attention--citations and discussion--but even if your work is relentlessly criticized, at least your work got some attention and you can always publish better stuff moving forward.

Let me say a bit more about these. At a few points in my career, I've browsed the publication lists of eminent senior people in the profession. One interesting thing I noticed is that most of their work is simply forgotten. Like, they literally have dozens of papers that have basically faded from view and no one even remembers. What are they remembered for? Answer: their good work. Okay, this oversimplifies a bit perhaps, but is still broadly correct I think. Second, I can actually think of a few scholars who essentially made their careers with bad work: works that are highly cited and widely discussed (and who got tenure and otherwise have good careers), yet the arguments of which are generally agreed in the field to be terrible. Should you want to be one of those people? Maybe not. But there are worse fates to have I think (like, not publishing enough to even get a job), and in any case I think you may have to risk being one of those people to have any chance at being one of the former (i.e. people who made their careers on the basis of good work).

Long story short, my own attitude is to simply not worry too much about the kinds of concerns the OP talks about. Do the best damn job you can on a given work. Try to do your due diligence on (viz. getting outside feedback, revising in the peer-review process, etc.). But then put it out there in the world, see what happens, and move on to the next work. Oh, and if you did make some mistakes (even embarrassing ones), learn from it! To take one example somewhat close to home, my first book received mixed reviews (some fairly good ones, some very bad ones, some in between). Did the negative reviews sting? Sure. Are there things I wish I'd done differently in the book? Yes. Still, I did the best job I could with it given my circumstances, knew some of the risks I was taking, am still proud of a lot of what is in it, and I've tried to learn from my mistakes--which is how my second book came into being (though of course it too will probably contain mistakes of its own!).

My thoughts then are these: Don't be afraid of making mistakes. Chances are you will make some, maybe even some bad ones. Every professional does, and yes, they can be very public ones (even Tom Brady has had some terrible games!). All you can reasonably expect of yourself is that you do your best and try to learn from them. And isn't that what philosophy is about, or at least what it should be about? Instead of spending time worrying about what other people think of your work, consider approaching philosophy more as a personal journey. My primary aim in moral philosophy is to understand the nature of morality. I want to understand it because it matters to me--in everything ranging from my everyday dealings with other people (and animals) to my political views about justice, who to vote for, and so on. If the approach I've defended to moral theory is on the right track, then yes, of course, that would make me happy. But if the approach is wrong, I'd want to learn that too--as difficult as it might be. Lots of philosophers in history have been dead wrong, often embarrassingly so (indeed, I think it goes without saying that the vast majority of them have been!). So, I say, dare to make mistakes. Do your very best to avoid them, but don't sweat it if you do. You're in very good company either way. :)

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

Comments

[anon]

I felt the sort of anxiety the letter writer notes with my first publications, but it's gone away.

I agree with a lot of what Marcus said, but I'll also note: with me anyways, not a lot of people are reading my papers, and when they read them, they often don't read them very closely. So the small mistakes or places to jump on that I was (irrationally) worried that people would jump on right after I published my papers - none of that has really happened.

But more importantly, I also just don't think that the work I got out there is bad, and that we should believe that making it through peer review is a sufficient condition for "good enough", whatever that is exactly.

[a philosopher]

I also agree with Marcus, but I'll add a point. You should think of publication as adding to a conversation, not the final word. So long as you're adding to the conversation in positive ways, mistakes are just part of the ride. The aim isn't to set in stone the definitive account. And if you look at all the great works in philosophy, this is what they do. They say interesting things, but they also make mistakes. More importantly, they move the conversation forward. Let other people catch your mistakes and move the conversation forward more.

A second quick thought: my impression is that we have rather high and strict standards in philosophy, compared to other fields. For example, people in other fields happily (and often) post conference drafts, slides, preprints, etc --- and often in very rough form. They do the sorts of things I've seen many philosophers recommend their graduate students not do: publicly post (e.g., on their website or on a repository) stuff that's only half-baked. I think this is good, and that we philosophers should do more of it. Two reasons: 1., it gets the conversation moving faster, and that was the point all along; 2., it already happens, albeit a more hesitantly and impermanently, via conferences and colloquial. If you're comfortable giving a talk at the APA, I really don't see why you wouldn't want to disseminate that same material more broadly.

And to do some axe-grinding ... these weird standards and hangups we have in philosophy about sharing work also seem tied to our stupid standards for refereeing. Given how people advise against making public (e.g., on a website) all but your best work, it's no surprise that they referee papers based on a standard of "being convinced" or "no mistakes".

[grymes]

My eighth publication just appeared in print. I feel the same post-publication anxiety, just as keenly as the first time. But, notably, I don't feel it nearly as strongly when I go back and read something I published a few years ago. I am simultaneously ashamed of the philosopher I currently am and surprisingly impressed by the philosopher I used to be.

"How do you deal with it?"

I mainly deal with it by promptly moving on to the next project. (This is easier as a professor/parent than it was as a relatively less busy grad student.) I can't bear looking at the paper I just published. So I don't.

"What do you tell yourself?"

I tell myself that (1) I have to publish to keep up this obscenely pleasant professorial lifestyle and (as Marcus remarks) that fact has little to do with the quality of what I publish, and (2) ultimately my published work is an offering to those who can benefit from it while pursuing their own philosophical journeys, not a particularly good reflection of how well my own philosophical journey is going. (NB that you can buy (2) whether or not you buy (or fulfill) "a philosopher"'s 'adding to the conversation' standard.) And, because of my experience rereading my first couple of publications, I've recently been more able to keep a straight face while telling myself that, inductively, (3) the new publication is probably actually pretty good and I'm just not currently in a position to appreciate that fact. With that said, (1+2) definitely still helps me sleep at night more than (3).

[Amanda]

I don't worry about this, because *every one* writes bad work sometimes. Moreover, it just has not been my experience that someone will, (1)read a paper, (2) think the paper is bad, and (3)therefore be convinced that the author is a horrible philosopher who shouldn't be in the profession. The first two happen a lot. I just have never seen it devolve into the third. Sure, the profession has a lot of people, all sorts of people, so I guess this has probably happened at some point. But really, I think it's exceptionally rare. In general, both people inside and outside of academia pay far less attention to you than you realize. Most people are mostly focused on their own life, their own career, those close to them, and how *they* appear to others. They just don't have time to get all huffy about some random junior philosopher who publishes a "bad" paper (not saying your paper is bad, of course, but just that it wouldn't matter if it was.)

[Erec Smith]

I just published a book in which I pull no punches about critiquing the current scholarship of anti-racism in rhetorical studies. (No, it isn't philosophy, but I think your opinions would still be relevant.) I know for a fact that people had already decided to hate the book before it was published. I also think this book will be scrutinized more than any other publication out there because I prefaced it with some rather frank public criticism of anti-racist initiatives in the field. So, even if the book is "good" (a well-reasoned, well-researched critique meant to start a dialogue on activist methodology) it will be treated by many as the worst thing they've ever read. (I had people contact my institution trying to get me fired in mere anticipation of the book.) How does one deal with that? Cancel culture is real. (By the way, I am a person of color, so my critique of some anti-racist methodologies are especially hurtful to many people.)

[Anon]

Erec- you can hope you that have a supportive department. But otherwise, outside of official organized conferences, interviews, etc. - I would not engage with anyone who doesn't seem open to argument. Besides that, all you can do is, write, speak, and behave in a way that is kind, professional, and polite - always, no matter how angry people get at you. That is all you can do. There are no guarantees. Many of the people who are hostile toward your work sincerely believe they are in the right.

[satisfied]

I have a lot of faith in the refereeing system. Of course it is not perfect. But the fact that two experts who I do not know think that a paper of mine is worth publishing leaves me feeling quite secure in my paper. Of course, the published paper may have flaws. But I do not doubt that it has merit as well. So I do not have the experience that the person discussed has. Perhaps I have a slight immunity, because I study refereeing and publication practices.