Interview on how to publish in philosophy

A reader wrote in to draw my attention to the following video featuring Justin Mooney (University of Alberta) and Liz Jackson (moving from Toronto Metropolitan University to St. Louis University). 

Curious to hear what everyone thinks of the discussion!

Comments

[Assistant Professor]

Not sure any of these points are exactly secret, as the video is titled, but overall it seemed like a good explainer on publishing. However, although the advice to go big or go home and only publish in top journals is common, there have been good discussions on this site about whether it is in fact warranted.

It often seems a bit incoherent to me to give advice to doctoral students that a) they need to publish before going on the market b) they need to only publish in top journals c) the acceptance rate at top journals is incredibly low and d) publishing can take a really long time with lots of rejections. How do these four things supposed to fit together?

[Daniel Weltman]

I disagree with the point made in the Q&A that it's okay to have a CV that does not list all your publications. Or, at least, I partially disagree. I disagree if you do this in a deceptive manner, and I think it's deceptive if you do this without listing your publications as "selected publications" or something similar. I agree that it's okay if you list your publications as "selected publications," because this indicates to the reader that you are not listing all your publications.

I also disagree that replies to X are less impressive than "novel" arguments, insofar as we're reporting our personal views. In the Q&A they don't take a position on what people generally think. I suspect that people generally agree with the opinion expressed in the video (and thus disagree with my opinion).

I think I agree with pretty much everything else, although I just skimmed the non-Q&A portion. I would add that, in the Q&A, they answered a question about whether co-writing something with a more established person is a good way to get published. They gave a qualified "yes" answer, which is accurate, but neglected to mention what I think is a very important point, which is that this sort of thing can maybe not be great for your CV, because if it's the only thing, people will think you can't publish alone, and even if it's not the only thing, they might think the more famous person did all the work.

(Indeed I suspect some people are so biased against co-writing that they might just assume your co-author did all the work for any given co-authored piece, just to be "safe," this despite the fact that if they looked at your co-author's CV this would lead them to conclude that you did all the work...)

Anyways, the lesson is that when you go on the market you want your CV to suggest you can publish on your own with your own ideas, not just those of a co-author, and the best way to demonstrate this (in a field like philosophy with a bias against co-writing) is to publish on one's own.

[Justin Mooney]

One clarification: the title describes Liz and I (Justin) as professors, but I'm actually a postdoctoral fellow right now. I'm guessing Jordan titled it that way because I have accepted a position as an assistant professor starting later this year.

[dissenting voice]

What these guys are saying might well be factually accurate. However, this only highlights how distorted—and perhaps rigged—the system is. Why this obsession with rankings? It all boils down to perceived reputation. They failed to demonstrate any correlation between rankings and quality. This type of elitism is damaging; it discourages people from publishing in lesser-known journals. Essentially, what is encouraged here is for individuals to publish in (mostly) American journals that are favored by the elite. The underlying message is this: these are our favorite gatekeepers. They have allowed us entry, but you will most likely be rejected. Why not choose a journal from a third-world country? I believe the publishing system will not improve if people follow advice like that given in this video.