Mentioning R&Rs in research statements?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, ABD writes:

To those on the job market, it's often recommended to include R&R status for papers on your CV (say in an 'under review' section). Suppose I discuss this paper on my research statement. Is it appropriate to indicate there, too, that it has received an R&R at a particular journal?

Good question. I don't think it's inappropriate to mention an R&R in both places (the CV and research statement), but I wonder whether it might come across a bit heavy-handed. In my experience, the CV is usually the first thing that any search committee member looks at. It's the easiest way to tell whether a candidate's AOS/AOC fits the position, how well-published they are (including whether they have R&Rs at good journals), etc. So, if you do list R&Rs on your CV, chances are search committee members will notice it and take it into account there. My sense is that, when reading research statements, search committee members are primarily interested in the ideas themselves: how interesting your research program is, the extent to which you have well-defined (and promising) long-term research plans, etc. 

For these reasons, I'm inclined to think that probably just mentioning R&Rs on your CV will suffice. In fact, listing R&Rs in your research statement might draw unnecessary attention to what you haven't published yet. So, maybe leave it out of research statements? But these are just some off-the-cuff thoughts of my own. What are yours? It would be great to hear from other search committee members!

Comments

[Arggh and Arrgh]

An R&R is NOT a publication, nor is it a commitment on the part of the journal to publish a revision. So do not list them on a cv. If you are desperate or if the R&R is in PhilRev or PhilSci then maybe mention it in yoru cover letter. If it is an R&R in The Typical Journal of Philosophy, then it will make no difference to your chances of getting a job, at least no positive difference.

[anonymous associate professor]

I can't see what would be wrong with this--also research statements are partly FOR calling attention to unpublished, in progress, and future work. I think it's helpful when people are clear about what stage their work is at in a research statement (forthcoming, in progress, submitted, future research, etc.) and listing something as submitted after an R&R is just another way of being clear about this. (You could leave the journal off of your research statement if you were worried about coming across as heavy-handed.)

[anon]

Argh & Argh references the value of mentioning R&Rs at all, which people have argued about at length on this blog before. But I hope people continue to focus on repetition (of anything), which I think has been less discussed.

I have never been on a search committee. But the reason I have started to repeat things across my materials more over time is that even at places where I get hired or flown out, people seem to have very spotty memory of the CV. I don't blame them for it - they're all busy and have lots of files to read - but this has made me wonder about whether people really remember something I only write down once.

[anonymous associate professor]

@Arggh and Arggh, that might be your opinion but others (including people on hiring committees! including me, who has been on many hiring committees) have very different attitudes. Also, there are a lot of different kinds of jobs, at many of those jobs no one cares about top journals. I recently had a student get a job who had zero publications and one R&R at a mid-range journal. The job the student got is at a place where tenure standards are mostly focused on teaching, but where publications are expected (I believe they told him about 2 is the expectation). In such a case, the student is demonstrating that they are likely to be able to publish even though they haven't yet. If the goal is 2 papers in 6 years, I think an R&R is pretty good evidence that the student will be able to pull that off. Also, R&Rs are not meaningless in general--at most journals they vastly increase the chance of acceptance, and I think a lot of hiring committees would want to know that piece of information, or at least wouldn't judge a candidate for listing it.

I can't personally see what is wrong with listing R&Rs on a cv so long as they are in a "work in progress" section and not a "publications" section.

[Michel]

I tend to think that on the CV it's filler, whereas in the research statement it's part of your research programme (and shows the programme has legs).

But I also don't get worked up about it.

[tell us]

I want to strongly endorse anonymous associate professor. I have been on search committees and find R&R useful information to have on a CV as long as it is clear that one isn't claiming it as a publication. I find it to be useful evidence for a research trajectory that has passed some initial outside vetting.

[Caligula's Goat]

Chalk me up as another person who wants to see R&Rs on CVs (clearly listed separately from your peer-reviewed publications of course). Almost all of my comments on this board are some iteration of: there aren't any general rules for the job market. Your application needs to be tailored to the kind of place you're applying to and even then, members of search committees can care about very different things.

All that being said, I've been on at least a dozen committees at this point at a coastal SLAC that requires 6 or more peer reviewed publications for tenure. I would say that for people 0-3 years out from their PhD, at a place like mine, it's helpful to list R&Rs. We need to make sure that you can publish enough for tenure even though teaching is 40% of our workload. Most people 0-3 years out won't have the kind of publishing trajectory that will make it clear whether they'll be able to publish 6 or more things so looking at their past, present/R&R, and future work gives us a lot more information.

Why put it in the CV and not just in your research statement? The answer is simple: just about everyone reads the CV, some people on the search committee won't read the research statement.

[Andy]

Of course, you should put R&Rs on your CV. Don't list them as publications obviously, but A) they are achievements of a sort (look for example at the percentage of Phil Review papers that receive even an R&R), and B) depending on the journal they are a pretty good sign that the paper will be published at that journal, or somewhere else (I'm not sure about everyone else but I think I have only ever had one paper rejected after R&R, and that was accepted by the next journal I submitted it to).

[Another Anon]

I think it is fine (or even good) to mention R&Rs on a research statement as it shows the committee that the research plan is 1) genuinely in progress (it hasn't just been made up for the application); 2) that it is showing some potential (especially if it is a new direction of research and/or the candidate has few/no publications); 3) it gives some (defeasible) evidence that the candidate has the potential to publish work from their research (i.e. there is a 'pipeline' of research to come).

And yes, an R&R might not be published, but it clearly does still show *something*. It shows that at least some people are taking the work seriously enough to spend even more review/editorial time on the paper. That is an achievement (even if one that is obviously less of an achievement than an accepted paper)

In principle, I like the idea that research statements are only about the ideas, but I don't think that is the case in the real world. For better or worse, people care about publications and so showing in the research statement that you have some (i.e. referencing your own already published work) and that you might have more coming soon (i.e. mentioning R&Rs) can be valuable.

I also second anon's comment above that repetition across CV and research statement can be good. People forget things, and so long as you don't endlessly repeat something, mentioning the same thing in a couple of different places can be a good way to remind people of your achievements. In the case of an R&R, putting it in the research statement as well as the CV helps contextualise the paper and allows you to give some more detail about what the paper is about.