Grappling with long review times

In our March "how can we help you?" thread, a grad student writes:

I have had multiple incidents of getting “too late” reviews. I foresee that this will keep occurring because the wait times at top journals can be extremely long and the reject rates are extremely high. I was wondering how does one deal with such cases and if there are any strategies with avoiding such scenarios. Sending to lower ranked journals with fast times isn’t an option for me because I’m at a top-5 programme and I face a two-body problem (and so need excellent publications to stand a good chance at solving my two-body problem).

1. The typical ‘you got scooped’.
I send out my paper from 1 journal, to the next. Some journals took incredibly long, like 7 mths, and even 1 yr to review (these were the first-round review times). Now, after 2.5 yrs later (the 5th journal I’m trying), I get a reject. The reviewer says that a similar idea has already published more than a year ago, and so my paper won’t contribute to the literature. Should I give up on this paper?

2. The author changed their views.
Philosopher X argues for theory T1 and argues on various desiderata that T1 is superior to T2. Various philosophers respond by trying to show how T2 can also accommodate the desiderata. My paper goes further to show that T1 cannot accommodate the desiderata for the very reasons that X thinks that T2 cannot accommodate the desiderata. I send out my paper from 1 journal, to the next. 2 years later (at the 4th journal I’m trying), I get a reject. The reviewers say that if my paper were sent earlier it would be accepted without revisions. However, philosopher X has changed their views about a year ago. So, my criticisms of T1 are no longer relevant. The debate is no longer between T1 and T2.

I really empathize with this student's predicament. I got scooped in a similar way in grad school, so this is something that I worried about lot early in my career after grad school as well. The peer review process can be so long, and so unpredictable, and when so many people in the profession are working on similar problems, it's hard not to worry about other people publishing arguments like yours before you do. As for authors changing their views, this isn't a problem that I've encountered, but I definitely see the issue. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that I have any great tips. My strategy was to shoot for lower-ranked journals where I could get my stuff out more quickly, but as the OP states this doesn't seem like a viable path forward for them. The only other tips that I can think of, unfortunately, are for the author to check to see whether the reviewer for paper 1 is right that the paper is too similar to one that already came out, and if not, to keep sending it out. Otherwise, I was always told that the only other path forward is to keep writing new papers. But of course this strategy just runs into the same problem: your new papers might get scooped as well. This is, as I see it, mostly just a really unfortunate feature of peer-review today that we all deal with. It makes peer-review itself quite a bit of a lottery--which is unfortunate in that it makes our careers even more highly dependent on luck than they already are.

What do you all think? Do any of you have any better, more helpful tips for dealing with these issues?

Comments

[Newly Dr]

It seems to me that case 2 should be impossible: who cares if T1 changed their mind! Other people might still hold their original view. I think this one is likely to be solved by different framing of the paper: why might someone hold T1's original view, why is it nonetheless incorrect?

We are, I take it, not generally supposed to care about what a particular philosopher thinks. What matters is whether the view has some initial plausibility and how good your arguments for or against it are. So just make it an impersonal paper about the view, not its proponent.

I guess it could be a case where the view is so initially implausible that it only gets any attention because famous guy X thinks it is true. In that case I would suggest we all avoid trying to write such papers in the first place.

[Michel]

It sounds to me like the reader may need to change their publication strategy.

They should, of course, have lots of papers out there simultaneously. But I think they should also spread them across the journal hierarchy a little more, especially since they need publications (it's all well and good to actually get something into PhilReview, but if it takes you six years to do so and it's pretty much all you've got, that doesn't help your tenure bid). That's not to say that they should reach way far down, but rather that perhaps they need to spread to the T20 + the top specialist journals in their AOS.

What I would do, if I were the reader, is single out one of my papers (or two, if I had lots of papers written up already) which I want to get into PR/Noûs/Mind/JPhil/PPR/whatever takes a while, and send the others 'round to journals with better reputations for a quick turnaround, including top specialist journals (if there are any in the reader's AOS). I would also advise them to keep an eye on special/topical issue CFPs at solid journals, including solid specialist outlets a little outside their AOS. They're somewhat easier to publish in, since the journal is committed to X number of articles on a pre-defined subject, and they can help to round out your file. In my experience, they're also fairly quick.

Throwing all of one's work at the T5 journals first and then working down from there strikes me as a bad strategy for someone with time constraints. The likelihood of rejection coupled with the time to review are bad news.

I would also suggest that narrower (or time-sensitive) papers like P2 (which sounds more like a reply piece to me) are best reserved for journals with a quick turnaround time. Like Newly Dr said above, the only thing to do now is to reframe it and try again elsewhere. The same, I think, applies to P1. Figure out what your paper's original contribution is, focus on that, and send it out again.

It's worth noting, however, that there are plenty of high-status journals with a quick turnaround time even among the top generalist journals--e.g. AJP, Analysis, and Synthese. Even though the reader is at a T5 department, they don't need to limit themselves to the T5 generalist journals. Have a look at where junior or newly-promoted faculty at peer institutions are publishing.

[new order]

I think the poster has to get advice from someone in their circle. That is, they need to ask faculty members at top 5 programmes how to proceed, given the constraints. Otherwise they will gets of advice from people who live in completely different worlds, advice that they will not take (probably, for fear of winding up in these other people's worlds)

[When Two Become One]

As someone at an excellent program who also has a two-body problem, I want to question the claim that "sending to lower ranked journals isn't an option" because OP "needs excellent publications" to solve their two-body problem.

Here are two other ways of solving the two-body problem: 1) one or both can focus on teaching; or 2) one or both can find amazingly fulfilling alt-ac careers. neither 1) nor 2) require 'excellent' publications, and both 1) and 2) seem to be viable ways of solving a two-body problem.

I mention this simply because, at least from my perspective, there are lots of ways of solving a two-body problem, and only one of them--perhaps one of the lowest likelihood ones--is to publish at such excellent journals that you (or both of you) can have your choice of R1 TT jobs. My partner and I ultimately want to be happy, healthy, and professionally fulfilled wherever we end up, and I think focusing on top publications is but a small part (if any) of an optimal strategy.

Hope that helps!