The Philosophers' Cocoon

Dismissing a reviewer's comments in a R&R?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, an author writes in:

I've recieved "major revision" verdict form a very good journal. This is the 2nd revision of the paper and I struggle how to proceed, because I feel that reviewer2 does not understand half of my manuscript...

He or she wrote 2 paragraphs in his/her review and I think that the proper way to address this review is just explain why all the sentences in this review are false/stupid. And zero changes in the paper.

Can I do so? Perhaps such a response will be treated as rude and my paper will be rejected?

Another reader submitted the following reply:

I would work hard to try to see why the referee is saying what they are saying. You might find that you are not as clear as you think you are. If you are on the second revision, then the wind is behind you. But do try to work with the referee.

A second reader, Prof. L, added:

Likely your paper will be rejected. Here’s a way of looking at it—as it is, your paper led to someone being confused about a couple of things. Instead of blaming your reader, blame the paper. How can you make the paper so that a person (reviewer 2) is less likely to come away with those misunderstandings about your position? I get it, and have been there, but also, when I give comments to students and they say “I know that, that’s what I meant!” it’s kind of frustrating. Whether or not that’s what you think, or intend, or even what you say explicitly in a footnote, I’m letting you know in my comments that you need to be clearer about it. I imagine a reviewer who got back a “you didn’t understand” would feel the same way.

But, a third reader shared a different perspective:

I was in a very similar situation a few months earlier, although this was the first round of reviewer comments. I tried to explain as carefully and gently as I could why I thought the reviewer misunderstood the paper. I acknowledged a few places in the paper which could have led to a misunderstanding and changed them somewhat (although really this was just to please the reviewer), but I didn't make any significant changes to the reviewer's misguided objections. It is essential to be polite, so you definitely don't want to say that a claim the reviewer made was 'stupid'. This felt very bold as normally I will just do whatever the reviewers say to get the paper published! But it paid off, since in the second round of comments that reviewer said they understood much better now and only had a few clarificatory questions. Of course, your mileage may vary, but I felt this was the only way I could proceed in this situation.

I'm curious to hear what other readers think. My own experience is that, in the vast majority of cases, it's probably best to take referee comments seriously and address them in the R&R, even if you think they are mistaken, uncharitable, etc. Much earlier in my career, I tried to resist/object a few times to referee critiques, but it did not go well (I received several rejections this way). Since then, I've virtually always tried to revise papers to address the reviewers' comments ... with one exception. A few years ago, I received two reports from a very good journal, one of which was very detailed and overwhelmingly positive, but the second of which was a several-sentence long vague dismissal of the entire project. Because the editors gave me an R&R and it was clear that there was nothing that I could do to satisfy Reviewer #2, I only addressed Reviewer 1's concerns in the paper and explained, as kindly and patiently as I could in my author's reply, why I respectfully disagreed with Reviewer 2's assessment of the project. The paper was eventually published, and there was no indication that the editors sent the paper back to #2--so my guess is that they dismissed that reviewer's comments in virtue of what Reviewer 1 had to say and their own editorial review of the paper.

But these are just my experiences. What are yours?

Which criteria do you use as a journal referee?

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

I am a junior faculty member and started to receive referee requests. I am curious about people's criteria for recommendations (acceptance, minor revision, major revision, and rejection, among others).

In addition to any general thoughts, I am particularly interested in hearing your thoughts on the following two questions. First, do you take the "quality" of a journal into consideration? For example, is it reasonable to think, "this paper is not good enough for Phil Review or PPR, but for this journal, sure, it should be accepted"? I feel that this sounds pretty normal, but I also know that people do not like journal rankings. If the quality of a journal should be considered, what is your standard? Do you implicitly or explicitly follow a specific ranking such as the survey by Leiter?

Second, is there a principle that you follow when you make your recommendations? To be honest, the rejections that I received usually raised some objections to my arguments. Is it a good principle that if you can find an objection to the author's main argument, then you should (probably) reject the paper? Do you recommend direct acceptance only when you cannot find a good objection? Thank you!

Good questions! Another reader submitted the following reply:

[E]veryone follows different criteria for their verdict. But I often take the quality of the journal into account while deciding whether my comments and feedback mean accept/r&r/reject. This is not because of the quality of the paper, but because of the ratio of space available in those journals to the volume of submissions. This naturally implies a higher level of selectivity than perhaps otherwise merited. Re. how I evaluate my accept/r&r/reject verdicts: I do not take any objection to an argument to be a reason to reject a paper. A straightforward rejection usually takes me to believe that no small amount of work could salvage a novel, interesting and close-to-being-sound argument/idea from the paper. Sometimes this is an objection to the main claim of the paper and sometimes it is about how well-formulated the claim and the case for the claim in the paper are. If the paper is well-structured and interesting, but you have a prominent objection to one of the main parts of the paper, I think it usually worth giving the author to revise the paper and after the revision, if the problem is still there, then reject it (the caveats about journal rankings apply here as well).

And one other reader wrote in:

(1) I usually only really consider originality and specialisation in this. So, if I review something for the British Journal for Philosophy of Science, I recognise they are looking for groundbreaking work and am hesitant to recommend a decent and correct but not very novel paper. Or, if I review for Foundations of Physics I realise that they are more open to somewhat technical stuff than, say, Synthese. But I wouldn't otherwise make a difference in 'quality'. (2) I definitely don't think only papers without any potential objections to them deserve acceptance. The distinction I try to make is: is this an objection that should really be addressed in the paper, or is it an objection that could itself form a significant part of the literature? If it's the former, then I would urge a revision, or in some cases a rejection. If it's the latter, I am happy to accept the paper - the fact that someone else can object to it in a way that is itself of interest only proves that the paper under review pushes the literature forward in some way!

What about the rest of you? Which criteria do you use as a journal referee? And do you tailor your standards to different journal types or rankings?

 

How do editors select reviewers, and how can one review more papers?

In our August "how can we help you?" thread, Big Ben writes:

I am an early career researcher, and soon after completing my PhD, I received invites from two journals to review submissions. However, in the past one year, I have received no such invites. (although I do not have a stellar publication record, I do have a couple of articles in reasonably recognized journals.)

I would like to review more papers, but I do not know how to get invited to review one. Can someone share some tips?

More generally, I would like to know more about the method journal editors adopt in choosing reviewers (does the submission system suggest reviewers automatically based on the interests/published papers, do editors look at the bibliography of a submission and choose names, is there a cross-journal system to rate reviewers, is there a repository where one can volunteer to review, etc.)

These are both excellent queries. One reader with editing experience submitted the following reply:

One tip is to let senior people/junior people with name recognition/who work at research departments in your subfields know that you are interested in refereeing more and rarely get requests. I am an associate editor and almost all refereeing requests these days come from alternate suggestions from those who declined. And when I am making those suggestions when I decline things, I often am in a rush and just think of whoever pops into my mind most quickly and write down those names. If you make yourself salient to the people who are often turning things down, you will very likely start getting more requests. (And you shouldn't feel like you can only do this if you know the person likes your work, or anything like that--I think the bar is pretty low for what people think of as competency to review, so I think anyone you know who you feel comfortable randomly emailing would be fine!)

Another reader, an associate editor, submitted the following as well:

[A]s an associate editor (at a mid-level specialty journal), I use the following procedure: (1) if I know the area of the paper, I think of people I know of who might have something interesting to say about it. I don't spend a lot of time here, so inevitably I tend to favor people whose work I know well, either because I know them personally or because of their reputation (2) if I don't, and sometimes when I do, I use the references (3) when people selected via 1 and 2 decline, I hope to get recommendations from them for alternatives (4) if none of 1-3 work (unusual) I search the literature on my own I don't think there's much that could be done to hack this system. You'll naturally get more, and probably eventually too many, such invitations, as your networks, reputations, and citations counts grow. You could volunteer, and I guess I wouldn't have a problem with that, but it's never happened to me and so there's always a chance that someone would think it weird. If you're mainly interested in seeing early, new, work in your field, you might also contact the APA program committees; I believe (not sure) they take volunteer referees, and these papers are often more on the cutting edge than journal submissions.

Do any other readers have any other tips or insights?

Are rejection rates particularly high in philosophy?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Are the rates of rejection - of articles from journals, of grant applications from funding bodies, of job applications from universities - particularly high in Philosophy? Is there some data about the average number of rejected papers per published papers from other disciplines? (Or a similar statistic about grant/job applications?)

Knowing this won't change anything on ground, but the (potential) solidarity with others would help feel a bit less disadvantaged (if I actually am).

Good questions. A while back,  Eric Schliesser (Amsterdam) presented some data at Daily Nous that rejection rates at philosophy journals tend to be far higher than in other fields, and when I've shared journal rejection rates in philosophy with some people in other fields, they have been shocked at how high our journals' rejection rates are.

If the OP is looking for a little grounds for solidarity on getting lots of rejections, they may find this post by Jason Stanley of interest, as well the following recent post by Neil Levy (Oxford University) on Twitter/'X':

Phil Studies accepted the very 1st paper I sent them. They rejected the subsequent SEVENTEEN attempts. Anyway, don't be discouraged by rejection, but definitely don't tell anyone you're on a 17 rejection streak until it ends.

I'm not so sure about rejection rates for grant applications and job applications, though. I do know anecdotally that the academic job market is significantly better in some other fields (until last year, my spouse was an academic in a rapidly growing, specialized STEM field flush with job openings and not all that many applicants), but I suspect things vary a lot here depending on field. 

Do any readers have any better info on the OP's questions (on rejection rates from journals, grants, and job apps)?

Contacting an author after reviewing their paper for a journal?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I have some questions about the norms of contacting an author after anonymously peer reviewing their work. I recently refereed a paper that I thought was great: well-argued, interesting, and from which I learned a lot. I recommended acceptance. I'd like to talk more about some of the issues in the paper with the author if they are amenable to it. Is it appropriate to ask the editor for their name after the publication processes has shaken out? Or, once the paper is out, is it appropriate to contact the author revealing to them that I was the referee? Are there norms against this sort of revelation, such that doing so would be a breach of etiquette? Any thoughts welcome!

Fair questions, and a couple of readers submitted replies. Elizabeth writes:

Unless there's some huge rush, I'd just wait until the paper is published and contact the author about it without mentioning that you were the reviewer.

And an editor and referee writes:

You should NOT contact the author of a paper you reviewed until it is in print (or on-line at the journal site). I think that constitutes a breach of norms. Incidentally, I have had a few referees of papers of mine contact me after my paper was in print, letting me know they refereed it. Often it was someone senior, while I was quite junior. Indeed, in one case, one referee identified himself in the referee report, which the editor left in the report for me to see. This proved very useful for me, as I now knew I had strong support from someone highly respected in the field.

Both comments seem right to me. What do you all think?

What's the most common/default citation style at journals?

In our July "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I have two related questions regarding citation styles. Nowadays, most journals do not require a specific style when you submit a manuscript, but you need to follow their styles when your paper is accepted. First, do we have a sense of the most common style of philosophy journals? (Is there a survey or summary about this?) Second, since one probably needs to send a paper to a few different journals (not at once, of course), what "default" style do people use when you write your drafts before knowing where to send them?

Good questions. I've spent way too much time reformatting citations, and would love to cut down the time I spend on them. My sense, anecdotally, is that in-text citations (APA format) may be the most common, which I find a bit frustrating, as it may be my least favorite format (I just don't like the aesthetics of how it breaks up the flow of a manuscript, particularly since my work tends to be very citation heavy). My default style is to give name/date/p. # in footnotes with a reference list at the end, though to be frank I don't even know what style this is called. I just think it looks best, but again, I have to change it a lot after acceptance.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts. What do you all think?

Is single-anonymized review a problem?

A reader writes in,

If possible, I would like to ask you and other readers to share some thoughts about the single-blind review policy (= reviewers are aware of the author’s identity but not vice versa). Recently, I noticed that one influential journal adopted such a policy. To be honest, I do not see any benefit from this practice. On the contrary, it seems to me that it is intentionally designed to filter submissions on grounds that are not philosophically relevant. For instance, there is a strong possibility that one can get rejected based on the religious pedigree of hers/his institution, as well as one can get rejected based on the place of living/working and hers/his personal beliefs, public service, membership in some association, etc. Obviously, the same reasons that worked against someone might help someone else. I suspect some sort of snobbish gatekeeping also might be a hidden intention behind such a policy. Or am I simply missing the point?

I don't know of many philosophy journals that practice single-anonymized review, but my understanding is that it is pretty common in the sciences. Is the practice problematic? The empirical evidence suggests so. Various studies and experiments have found that disclosing authors' names in peer review has an "astonishing" influence on peer-reviewers, benefitting famous names and authors from prestigious institutions, while hindering newcomers from publishing. 

So, why is single-anonymized review still practiced at some venues? Proponents may argue that single-anonymized review has some advantages, particularly in the sciences (where reviewers may be able to spot conflicts of interest, for example), and that so long as other forms of peer-review are practiced, including at other journals, then diversity in peer-review practices may be a good thing--particularly if authors can always choose to send their work to double or triple-anonymized journals. 

But these are just a few thoughts. What do you all think?

Philosophy Journal Insight Project

Sam Andrews (University of Birmingham) writes in:

I lead the Philosophy Journal Insight Project [pjip.carrd.co]and believe that it might be of interest to readers at the Philosophers' Cocoon. 

The main resource of the project is a spreadsheet that provides a comprehensive overview of around 50 philosophy journals. It contains:

1) Standardisation of key information about journal submission; word counts, peer review anonymity, open access status, etc.

2) Collection of journal rankings from blogs and ranking sites; Leiter Rankings, SJR Rankings, SNIP Rankings, etc.

3) Estimates drawn from journals and APA surveys for acceptance rates, comment chance, average days for a desk rejection, average days for external review, etc.

4) Compilation of various impact statistics; total citations, CiteScore percentile, etc.

The site also contains a resources section that links to various places relevant to journal submission.

This is great service to the profession. Do check it out!

Incorporating your previous work as assumptions in a paper without violating anonymity?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Let's say I'm working on topic X. I have a novel interpretation of Y, which is related to X, and I published a paper defending this interpretation of Y. In my new paper on X, I want to assume this interpretation of Y. How to do this without violating anonymity? Here are my thoughts:

- I can just cite myself as a third party, explain the view briefly, and then say that I will assume this view. But I think this approach would not realistically protect anonymity since I'm a very early career person, and no one is going to assume my views except for me.
- I can briefly explain the interpretation without citing myself. But this raises worries like: "this interpretation needs much more work to get off the ground" or the claims like "this view is already defended in an earlier paper that the author isn't aware of." So honestly, I don't know what to do.

How do you incorporate your published work into a new paper without violating the rules of anonymized peer review?

These are good questions--in fact it's an issue that I've run into many times myself, both as an early-career scholar and now as a mid-career scholar. While I've heard from many it's best to cite oneself in the third-person to preserve anonymity, this doesn't help all that much in a paper where one is primarily building on other work one has published previously. 

Another reader submitted the following reply:

I think you should worry about what you do assume in a paper if, as you note, "no one is going to assume my views except for me". Assumptions in philosophical papers are to be widely accepted (hence, widely held). Alternatively you can just say, I will assume "...". But if the assumption is not granted by the referee, then the paper is unlikely to be accepted.

I don't think this is exactly right. Assumptions don't have to be widely held to be legitimate to invoke in a philosophical argument; what they need to be is to be defended. But still, the practical problem here is real: if you're the only one who has defended the relevant assumption(s), then, particularly if you're early-career, any referee is likely to suspect that you're the author of the previous paper defending them.

So, what to do? Do any readers have any helpful tips? 

Rejecting a paper based on one report by a referee that previously reviewed the paper?

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

A top 10 generalist journal rejected a manuscript of mine on the basis of one referee report. The one referee said that they had rejected an earlier version of my manuscript elsewhere. I know that editors can have a hard time finding referees, but should editors base rejections on reports provided by one such referee?

This is a good question. I've seen a few conversations about this topic before on social media, and I'm curious to hear what people think. Personally, given just how much different referees can disagree over the merits of a given paper, I'm inclined to think that journals should give authors a chance with new reviewers who haven't reviewed it before. Then again, I'm not a journal editor, so I don't know how feasible this is as a general rule.

What do you all think?

Going over a journal's word-limit in an R&R?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Do revise-and-resubmits have to respect the same initial word limit? Or is there some leeway (10% over?)?

Good questions. I've heard anecdotally that it can be fine to go a little over a journal's limit, and another reader submitting the following reply:

yes, add 10% in the R&R ... I have done it ... but it should be done because one is addressing concerns of referees.

Still, it might be good to hear from other readers. I did it for the first time recently, with a paper that was ultimately accepted at a good journal. But in general, I like to avoid anything (like going over a limit) that might give referees or editors an excuse to reject, so for the most part I try to stick to word-limits.

What say you all? Do you go over word limits in R&Rs? If so, is 10% a good rule of thumb? Or, has this backfired for anyone?

Journals using "initial" review prior to peer-review?

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

When I submitted a paper to BJHP last Fall, the paper got rejected after receiving an initial review before being sent out for peer review. I got some helpful feedback from the initial reviewer (who isn't the editor). I wonder if there are other journals that adopt this practice of sending submissions for an initial review before the peer review.

Another reader submitted the following reply:

I am puzzled ... why do you say it was not peer reviewed? If someone other than the editor looked at the paper then it was peer reviewed. Am I missing something? Sometimes journals do give authors decisions with only ONE referee's report - in fact, I am a quick reviewer, and I have noticed that some of the journals I have reviewed for have made decisions on the basis of my report only (and the editor's judgment). If one report contains enough information to form a sound judgment, then an editor may choose to reject the paper on that basis (especially if they have not managed to secure a second referee).

As a matter of fact, I think this second commenter is missing something. In the past year or so, I have begun to receive a kind of referee request that I had never received before: requests by journals to give an "initial review" of a submission to determine whether the paper should be sent out to referees for a full review. In these requests (which I have received from two or three different journals), I am explicitly asked to decide not whether the paper should be published, but rather whether it should be sent to referees. Further, it's noted that in making a recommendation, I may elect to provide comments but that I don't need to: all the journal wants is to know whether to send the paper to referees.

So, it seems, some journals may be adopting a new practice that functions something like "desk review" by journal editors. For my part, I can't help but wonder whether this practice may be a result of journals being overwhelmed with new submissions (see here), one aim being to provide quicker verdicts for papers.

Do any readers have the "inside scoop" on what's going on here? Also, what do readers think of this practice, as described above? I guess I sort of find something attractive about it, as it may more widely distribute the "gatekeeping" function of desk review at journals beyond just a few editors. On the other hand, it might incentivize more rejections without comments. But again, this is mostly just speculation, as I'm not entirely sure how these initial reviews function (do editors also read the paper?). Anyway, I'm genuinely curious!

Crowdsourcing review times for specialist journals?

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

I am aware of a couple of crowdsourced web pages for data on average journal review times and other relevant stats for early career people trying to get a feel for where they should and shouldn't send things off if they're hoping for a semi-reasonable turnaround. There are plenty of "specialist" journals, though, that don't end up on those lists, particularly those that intersect with the sciences. I think it could be really helpful to get a thread going in which people can share links to any such journal database pages that they're aware of (including pages for interdisciplinary journals!). I personally didn't find out about these things until well into grad school, and wish I had earlier. I think this would also be a great way of increasing the accuracy of these sources (by increasing submission #s) and slightly minimizing the extent to which success at early stages in this profession hinges on knowing the "right" people with this sort of insider info!

This is a great query. Another reader wrote in:

I'm not sure that there's any other page than this one: https://apasurvey.philx.org/ Seems pretty active.

While to my knowledge that is probably the best page for journal turnaround times, there's at least one other crowdsourced page for other journal stats here.

I highly encourage readers to contribute to it, filling in info for missing journals!

Does anyone know of any other/better pages for philosophy journal info?

Do PhD students at unranked programs get a fair shake in peer review?

In our April "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

In the opinions of Editors of Journals (who decide on whether a paper moves to reviewers), what are the chances of a paper coming from Ph.D. students from "unranked" or not top 50 schools getting to the reviewers? That is, do editors automatically desk reject papers from grad students they haven't heard of or universities that aren't top 50? I ask because this seems to be the sentiment amongst the grad students from these "lower" ranked schools. And it seems to be supported by anecdotal evidence and conversations between students from varying schools and their prestige. If this is true, I doubt the editors of the "good" journals will admit to it, but worth asking.

I would by surprised if editors would automatically reject papers by anyone, and some journals practice triply-anonymized review, in which case no one knows the identity of a submitting author. On the other hand, some journals are only doubly-anonymized, in which case editors may know who the author of a submitted paper is--and it's always possible for bias to come into play when a person's identity is known. In any case, I wouldn't know how to gather good evidence one way or another about this issue aside from asking authors who are from unranked or low-ranked programs whether they get referee reports and/or publish in journals.

Do any editors or authors with experience here care to weigh in on this?

Norms for checking on the status of conditional acceptances?

In our April "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Are the norms for emailing an editor to inquire about a submission's status any different for minor revisions/conditional acceptances than they are for initial submissions? Is it appropriate to email after just three months, say, if you still haven't heard back about a conditional acceptance?

I would think the norms are the same as for any submission. If three months have passed, you can always write to check on the status. But these are just my thoughts. 

What are yours?

Times of the year when peer review is quicker/slower?

In our April "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Are there periods of time throughout the year when the journal peer-review process is either quicker or slower?

I suspect, at least anecdotally, that peer-review tends to be quickest during the summer, when many faculty do not have teaching duties, and slowest during the end of fall and spring terms (when people's grading loads are highest). But, of course, this is just anecdotal speculation, and moreover, there are substantial differences in when academic terms begin or end across different institutions, countries, and hemispheres. So, I'm not sure!

Does anyone have any helpful insights? It could be great to hear from journal editors and reviewers!

When to withdraw a paper?

In our April "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

When is the time to withdraw a paper from a slow publisher and look for a better venue elsewhere? I have agreed to write a paper for a collection of essays that the editors just keep pushing back further and further.

I agreed to write the paper in the spring of 21, submitted it in the fall of 21, and have been waiting ever since. Every couple of months, I ask the editors for an update, and they always tell me that something came up, but that the book will be finished soon.

On the one hand, I'm frustrated, but on the other hand, I also don't want to withdraw my paper and create new problems for the editors and the other authors who maybe need the publication more than I do. But after a year and a half of waiting, I'm starting to become anxious.

I think a year and a half is an absurd amount of time. I'd withdraw after 6 months or so, at least after a few emails to the editors to check on the status. As an author and reviewer, I value professionalism, and I don't think absurdly long review times are professional. So, if I were the OP, I'd withdraw now and submit somewhere else that has a better reputation for good turnaround times.

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

Journals with good turnaround times?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

About journal reviewing times:

I heard that the reviewing process is taking longer and longer in the last fewer years. As a PhD who is eager to get papers published, I was wondering whether there are mainstream and generalist journals that are known to have relatively short turnaround times for the reviewing process.

I have an impression that Synthese is reliable in this respect. On its website(https://www.springer.com/journal/11229) it says the median is 82 days from “Submission to first decision”; although this information is probably outdated.

For those who have more experience or inside information on this: are there journals that are particularly efficient in this respect? Are there mainstream journals that I should avoid?

Good questions. Another reader submitted the following reply:

I just wanted to point your (and everyone else's) attention to the APA Journal Survey Project, which has a lot of data on review times: https://apasurvey.philx.org/. And of course you can help each other by submitting your own data!

The APA Journal Survey Project is a good resource, but does anyone know how up to day the information is? Also, while I'm happy to have people post below on their experiences journals with good turnaround times, I don't know how comfortable I am with people posting on journals with bad turnaround times (as blog comments are hearsay, and negative comments could hurt a journal's reputation, which could give rise to problems for me as blog moderator and administrator).

In any case, if you have had any good recent experiences with journals giving quick decisions, feel free to post on them below!

Inquiring about the status of journal submissions

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, an anxious grad student asks:

I am sure there are topics on this, but it never gets old: how long after the submission is it appropriate to reach out to a journal to inquire about the status of the submission? 2 months? 3 months? 6 months? Is there any difference in norms relative to journals?

I'm pretty sure that we've discussed this on previous occasions, but it could still be good to take people's temperature on this again. Personally, I think I'd probably wait 6 months. The average turnaround time for many journals seems to be 2-4 months, so asking within that timeframe might not have much of a point. Then again, different journals have different average turnaround times (sometimes listed on their website), so maybe go by that?

Anyway, these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

Putting papers in progress on one's website?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

What's the risk of putting the titles of one's "in progress" or "under review" papers on one's website? Sometimes I'll see a website where someone has replaced the title of their paper with something to the effect of "title redacted for review". And sometimes they'll even redact the titles of presentations on their CV (if they have a paper under review with the same title). But redacting titles of papers and presentations is a pain. So what's the risk?

Is the thought that reviewers might discover your identity and form biases? If so, are some authors more likely than others to suffer from deanonymization? Might those who study or work at prestigious institutions, or who have excellent publication records, even benefit from a positive presumption after deanonymization?

Good questions. What do you all think?

Reviewing a paper again for another journal?

In our two most recent "how can we help you?" threads, two comments were posted (by the same reader?) on whether to accept a reviewer assignment for a paper that they already recommended rejecting at another journal:

I've been asked to review a paper in a journal that I've already reviewed in a different journal and recommended rejection. I haven't seen the new paper but the title is the same. I was quite sure the paper was not ready for publication then and its been about 3 months since then that I've received the request and so I think its unlikely the paper has substantially improved. Should I still take up the review request?

----

Should you review a paper that you've reviewed before for another journal that you recommended rejection there? I'm not sure if it seems unfair to them that they have to be reviewed by the same reviewer that already didn't like their work the first time and maybe deserve to have someone else read the work?

Good questions. Another reader submitted the following reply:

I have refused to review for a second time. Reason is that I believe that I may be mistaken. And being on the other end, my currently most cited paper (and among the top cited papers in the relevant debate) was rejected by a particular reviewer several times at different journals, always giving the same set of comments. (Almost prompting me to leave academics.) I think it would be bad to exacerbate one's mistake.

This is my policy as well, and for the same reasons. Peer-review is such a crapshoot, and referees so different in their judgments, that I think an author deserves a shot with different reviewers in different places. 

What do you all think?

When anonymous review is compromised?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

What is the protocol for when a journal (accidentally) reveals identities in a blind peer review? I've experienced this a few times lately, from both sides: As an author, I got the reviewer's comments and could still see their name. As a reviewer, I got a paper that still contained the author's name (both top-level special journals in my field, btw). What should one do in such a case? Report to the journal? Pretend nothing happened? Decline to review?

Good questions, and I'm curious to hear what people think. First, I think it's worth noting that not all journals have anonymized review. In some science-y fields (including some philosophy of science journals), journals have authors submit papers with their identifying issue available to reviewers. So, although I don't know for sure, something like that might have happened here. But, if not, I think the right thing to do is to draw the problem to the editors' attention and, if you're a reviewer, decline to review. I've heard some people say that they tell the editor, and then let the editor decide whether to let the review proceed. But I think this is bad practice. If a journal is supposed to have anonymized review and that is compromised, then the review should not proceed, whatever the editors might say or do--as it goes against the journal's own stated editorial policy. 

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

How much time do editors and referees spend on submissions?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

How much time do editors/referees spend on average reading submissions before making a decision? Do they read them more than once?

Interesting questions. It would be great to hear from readers (both editors and reviewers), but I suspect there is huge variance. As an another reader writes in the following submitted reply:

I suspect the average would be misleading -- a distribution would be much more helpful. Such info, while likely not feasibly accessible, would be interesting to see (probably there's a *huge* variety).

In my own case as a reviewer, how long I take on a paper depends on many things: how long and complex the paper is, how good I think it is, how certain I initially am about the recommendation I plan to make to the editors (sometimes I know that I want to recommend reject, accept, R&R-major revisions, etc.; other times I waffle), how much work I think a paper needs if I recommend an R&R (as in these cases I write extremely detailed reports specifying exactly what issues need to be addressed for me to recommend acceptance), and so on. Then, of course, there is my personal and professional schedule. Some times of the year are busier than others with teaching, family obligations, service obligations at my university, research (sometimes I have revise-and-resubmits and other research deadlines to meet too!), and sometimes these things can be planned for but other times not. All of these things and more result in huge variance in how long it takes me to get a referee report done. Sometimes I get reports done well in advance of the journal's deadline (in fact, sometimes after just a few days or weeks), but sometimes it takes considerably longer. In any case, I have a policy of meeting journal deadlines, and I'd never not complete a report on time (or at most a day or two late).

But this is just my experience. What are yours? It would be great to hear from reviewers and editors! 

Peer review and special journal issues: should early-career people publish in them?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

When a journal does a topical special issue volume with guest editors, do those editors tend to do R&Rs like an ordinary journal submission, or are they more likely to simply accept or reject? I realize this will probably differ depending on the SI in question, but I am just trying to get a sense of what the process is like before I submit to one for the first time. Do acceptances/rejections tend to happen faster than the usual rate at that journal? Or are they slower/the same?

Relatedly, as an early career person with a real need for more publications, how do special issue pubs look on a CV to search committees? I take it that they aren't as highly valued as ordinary journal publications, but how much lower are we talking? Is it even worth submitting to them if you're early career with minimal publications?

These are all excellent questions. I don't know all that much about exactly how much the peer-review process for special journal issues differs from standard journal submissions, including whether acceptances/rejections tend to happen more quickly for the former. However, I do know that R&Rs happen (I've had some myself), and my (admittedly anecdotal) sense is that when it comes to invited submissions to special issues or edited volumes, there may be some presumption in favor of publication (whereas there is no such presumption for normal, non-invited submissions), and of course the editor for the special issue will know who you are, so the peer-review process won't be triple-anonymized.

In terms of how publications in special issues look to search committees, this is a tough one. A big part of the problem is that a search committee really doesn't know exactly what (or how rigorous) the peer-review process was. My sense is that (rightly or wrongly) some people may suspect that inclusion in a special issue may be at least as much about having good professional connections as it is about the quality of one's work--and this concern might be especially salient if it's an early-career person (and job candidate) who hasn't otherwise published much via the standard in peer-reviewed journals. In fact, I've definitely heard this kind of concern voiced before: that it's hard to know what to make of a candidate with a bunch of invited/special publications but few (or no) standard journal publications.

So, my sense (though it could be wrong) is that if you've published fairly well in peer-reviewed journals already the standard way, then publishing in special issues is probably just fine (and perhaps even a positive)--but that if you have "minimal publications" (like OP states), then submitting to special issues may not be the best way to go. It may make more sense to build up your CV with standard journal publications first.

Then again, perhaps a lot depends on the quality of the journal (e.g. is a special issue of Mind?), and perhaps I'm wrong and  special issue publications look good to some search committees (perhaps at institutions where perceived reputation matters?). Anyway, not sure. What do you all think? It would be great to hear more both about the publication process for special issues, as well as how search committees perceive/weigh such publications.

Some thoughts on gatekeeping

Gatekeeping has a bad rap. Still, though we loathe it, academics do it all the time. Our institutions depend on the well functioning of various gatekeeping mechanisms--mechanisms that help discern what should be funded or published, and what doesn't.

For instance, I am associate editor for journals Ergo and for Journal of Analytic Theology. In addition, I review for journals and for academic book presses (e.g., Cambridge, Oxford, MIT, Routledge, and Mohrbeck Sie, where I am in the editorial board). I have been, and am currently, a reviewer for several grant agencies including the National Endowment for the Humanities and the British Academy. I help decision small grants and prizes for the APA Public Philosophy committee. Also, I regularly review the research of academics who come up for tenure and promotion. Until last year, I was on a committee for grad admissions at SLU, and presently I am on two search committees for jobs searches. 

So, a fair amount of my time is spent evaluating other people's work and trying to discern its quality. But how do we go about being gatekeepers? I think, inevitably, we end up being perhaps a little more conservative than we like, but we do have the power to shape the discipline. How the field advances depends on the quiet, often uncompensated labor of referees, editors, and other evaluators. 

When I got my first tenure and promotion file to review, I wondered how to adjudicate these and how to communicate to the committee if (fortunately  not the case for my first one) if I felt the file was a little thin, or if it plainly did not meet the criteria set out by the institution. I spoke about it at a conference over dinner to someone who has been an evaluator for many tenure and committee reviews. 

"Some people," this professor said over wine and quiche, "Feel somewhat squeamish about giving a negative evaluation. They'll resort to saying something bland or they try to talk up what they believe is insufficient."

"So," I asked "How about you?"

"Well I am not squeamish," he replied "I am part of academia, and tenure and promotion is part of that institution. I value tenure and the academic freedom it affords, but tenure depends on the procedure of the tenure and promotion process. While in most cases, the body of research presents a clear case in favor of tenure, it sometimes doesn't, and the committee needs to know that. I need to be honest and diligent in my assessments."

I often think back of this reply and how it can be generalized. When people violate this implicit norm/social contract, problems might arise.

When a journal can't find reviewers?

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

I have a paper that's been under review at a journal for about five months, and not a single reviewer has been found so far. Judging by the updates on the website, it seems that the editor has gone through maybe 3 or 4 reviewers during these five months. This is a well regarded generalist journal.

In my (admittedly short) experience I haven't seen something like this. I'm wondering whether that's a bad sign and I should just withdraw my paper and submit it elsewhere.

I'm curious how the OP knows that no reviewers have been found (in my experience, journal submission portals don't tell you that sort of thing). In any case, if I were in the OP's position and I knew that there were no reviewers after five months, I think I would definitely withdraw and submit to another journal. 

What do you all think?

Asking editors to exclude particular reviewers?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I think my papers keep getting sent to, and rejected by, a few senior philosophers from my discipline who don't have a high opinion of my work (not entirely for scholarly reasons, I suspect).

How usual/acceptable is it to ask editors at a journal to exclude one/set-of philosophers from reviewing your article? Would it put the article at a disadvantage?

Interesting questions. I know that a few journals explicitly ask authors to recommend reviewers as well as reviewers the author would like to avoid. I've submitted to a few journals like these over the years, and they tend to require some explanation by the author. But what about journals that don't have this feature? Most journals, in my experience, have a "comments to editor" box where you can write a short cover letter to the editor(s) upon submission. So, I suppose if you were a submitting author, you could mention something to the effect of what the OP mentions above.

But is this at all appropriate? How would editors respond? I'm not sure. I guess if the OP sincerely thinks certain people are rejecting their work "not entirely for scholarly reasons" (such as personal or political reasons), then they could mention such potential conflicts of interest in their cover letter. But again, I'm not sure how advisable this is. 

Anyone have any helpful insights here? It would be great to hear from authors, but obviously, it would be very helpful to hear from journal editors.

Boilerplate journal rejection language?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Recently got desk-rejected by Ethics after waiting 4 months. The comment " I am afraid, however, that it is inappropriate for the journal." is boilerplate right?

Interesting question. I'm not sure this is boilerplate. I took a look at a couple of desk-rejects that I received from the same journal, and didn't see this kind of language. Curious to hear what others think!

Asking editors for referee clarifications?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I'm working on revising an R&R, but for one comment by a reviewer, I'm finding it difficult to understand exactly what the reviewer's concern is. Part of the issue is that the comment is full of typos and incomplete sentences. But that aside, my question is more general: Is it ever alright to ask the journal's managing editor to reach out to the reviewer on your behalf in order to ask the reviewer a question of clarification?

This is an interesting question, and I'm not sure what the answer is. I've never approached editors with a query like this, and wonder whether any readers have (and what editors and referees might think if approached in this way). Anyone have any helpful experiences/tips to share?

Presenting papers currently under review?

In our November "how can we help you?" thread, an anonymous postdoc writes:

I've seen a few discussion here about presenting papers before they are under review. And the consensus seems to be that this is fine (as I think it should be).

However, I'm not sure you've touched on presenting papers that are currently under review.

Specifically, I am giving a talk next week on a paper that is already under review, and at a venue where I expect some of the most obvious reviewers for the paper will be attending (although it is not a particularly niche paper, so the probability the reviewers are actually there is reasonably low).

The following reasons make me think this should not be a problem: 1. I'm pretty sure I've seen people do this before. 2. If the reviewers are in the audience and haven't started reading the paper yet then this is really just an instance of pre-review presentation.

But the final reason goes rather the other way: 3. If the reviewers have started reading the paper and my presentation changes their views of the paper (either positively or negatively) then they might need to excuse themselves (or feel that they should) from review—and that would be annoying for everyone (me, the reviewers, the editors) due to the wasted time and effort all around.

So, have I made a mistake? And assuming that I will present the paper anyway (it would be difficult to change now), is it better to flag that the paper is already under review or not to mention it?

My sense is that it is fine to present papers that are under review at journals. I suppose it could "pollute the reviewer pool", as it were, particularly if the paper is on a niche topic where there aren't many reviewers for the journal to choose from. But this is a problem even before a paper is under review, as presenting at conferences or colloquia can disclose your identity to potential reviewers too. I also don't think it's a good idea to flag it to the presentation organizers or participants. But, I'm not sure. I have to confess that I've never thought about the OP's questions before myself!

What do you all think?

Addressing peer-review bottlenecks in job apps?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I am a postdoc on the job market and I only have minor publications on my CV. I currently have three publications under review; one of this paper has been reviewed for a year at a highly-regarded journal in my main AOS and another is stuck in a third R&R round since May. The difficulty for finding reviewers may be explained by the fact that I use an unusual empirically-informed methodology in philosophy.

Would it be a good idea to address the impact of the reviewing bottleneck on my research in my job documents? And if so, how? Instead of directly addressing this situation in my cover letter, a way to hint at this situation could be to add on my CV and/or research statement the dates since my papers have been under review or through R&R. Or, would it be better to have my letter writers addressing this situation in their letters?

These are good questions, but although I could be wrong, I unfortunately suspect that addressing these issues in job-market materials (either in a cover letter or letters of recommendation) is unlikely to help very much. From a hiring perspective, search committees have incentives to hire people who publish enough--and publish quickly enough--to get tenure. They also typically have hundreds of candidates, many of whom have robust publishing records, and who they may favor for that reason alone.

Fortunately, I think, all is not lost. Search committees, at least in my experience, also care a great deal about the nature and quality of a person's work and will sometimes hire someone with few publications because their research is particularly unique and exciting. My department hired someone like that a few years back--someone whose research was so different than everyone else in our pile that we just had to interview her, and she knocked our socks off and we ended up hiring her.

Petitioning an editor to reconsider a verdict?

A reader wrote in recently with the following kind of question, which I paraphrase (with their consent) to preserve their anonymity:

If you submit a paper to a journal, the referees provide mixed verdicts (one positive, one negative) and your paper is rejected, does it ever make sense to petition an editor to reconsider their decision, particularly if you think the negative report is flimsy, unfair, etc.? Have any readers tried this? If so, did your petition work?

We actually discussed this issue a few years ago, and the few comments there were illuminating. But I think it might be helpful to hear from more readers, as well as perhaps from some editors!

 

Why three reviewers?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I have submitted a paper to a special issue of Synthese, and it is now under review of the third reviewer. Is it normal to get a paper reviewed by more than two reviewers (in my case, three) in a special issue? Does this mean that there are conflicting suggestions from the first two reviewers?

Another reader, "ref", responded:

Yes, there probably was a split verdict, but one was promising enough to warrant a 3rd opinion

This seems probable to me, but I wonder whether journals sometimes commission three reviewers even without a split verdict. Any editors care to weigh in?

What article statuses at journals mean?

In our August "how can we help you?" thread, a non-tt faculty member asks:

Does anyone have a good understanding of what article statuses, e.g. initial check or awaiting associate editor recommendation mean? I think some are fairly self-evident in retrospect, but when I first started submitting to journals I was quite confused and anxious.

I think, of course, the best thing to do is to not check article status every hour, but some general answers may be helpful to people like my former self.

My experience is that different journals often have somewhat different article status processes, but here are a few that I can recall offhand along with what I think they mean:

• Initial checking --> article is with the managing editor, who makes sure the article is fully anonymized, within the journal's word limit, etc.
• Reviewers contacted --> the editors are trying to find reviewers
• Under review --> some journals seem to use this for every stage of peer review.
• Awaiting reviewer scores --> self-explanatory
• Reviews completed --> self-explanatory
• With editor --> this may occur early in the review process, indicating the article is under desk review by relevant editor(s), who are deciding whether to send the paper to reviewers; but it may also occur after reviewer scores are received, indicating the editor is in the process of reading their reports and making a decision.
• Awaiting associate editor recommendation --> referee reports are completed, and the journal has some associate editor(s) decide on the basis of the reports (and their own reading of the paper?) whether to recommend acceptance, rejection, etc., to the Editor in Chief/Editorial Board.

It's also worth noting that sometimes papers can go from "reviews completed" to "with editor" (or some such) back to "Under review." This may happen, I think, if the reviewers were split and the editor is seeking out a third reviewer to break the tie. But really, I'm only speculating there, and like the OP I generally prefer not to check my article statuses very often (I don't find it very productive, though if a paper has been under review for several months, I may check in to see where things are at).

Do any readers (particularly journal editors) have any inside insights to share on what article statuses mean (and what's going on behind the scenes)?

Tips for handling multiply-(desk)-rejected papers?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I have written two papers that get regularly desk rejected. I've just created an excel spreadsheet to track that. These are papers that are the result of the realisation of a research project I've got some external funding. Several people who are more experienced and more accomplished than I am and who read the papers tell me that they are good: top-15 on Leiter's list (I've managed to publish something of that stature in the past). These two papers were collectively rejected 12 times in the past 6 months and were rarely sent to external reviewers... but when they were sent for external review, the reports were ok (some mild acceptance, some R&R recommendations).

It seems that when one actually reads the papers, then the impressions are mostly positive; the problem is that the editors keep throwing my works in the bin without sending them for an external review... I'm very frustrated because I'm running out of journals that my papers are suitable for... And I start to wonder if my institutional affiliation and nationality are not playing at least some role in this chain of rejections (I come from a country that is not philosophically cool, like UK or Germany, and my university is internationally relatively unknown)...

Do you have any ideas what the problem is? And what might be a solution?

These are great questions, and I'm curious to hear what readers think. Has this sort of thing happened to you? If so, do you have any tips for the OP?

Checking in on an R&R?

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

I understand that you are supposed to wait three months after submitting an article before reaching out to the journal to inquire about the submission, but I'm wondering if I should also wait three months before inquiring about a submitted revision for an R&R?

My sense is that it's probably best to think of R&R's like any other submission. Also, for what it's worth, I've never had much luck with checking in on papers. Every time in the past that I've done so, I got a rejection soon after, so these days I just prefer to wait. I also try to send papers to journals that have a reputation for having good turnaround times, so that I don't run into this kind of quandary.

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

Is it ethical to post preprints?

Liam Kofi Bright, Remco Heesen, and I have argued for transitioning toward a crowdsourced approach to peer review. Yet, one common concern raised to our alternative approach is that it would effectively undermine anonymized review--the main mechanism in our current system for mitigating bias in favor and against authors on the basis of knowing their identity. I honestly appreciate this concern, though I still think the overall benefits of moving toward a hybrid peer-review model like that used in math and physics (which combines a crowdsourced approach with traditional journal review) are likely to outweigh the costs. 

But regardless, I recognize that not everyone agrees that peer-review should change, and this has gotten me thinking a bit about the ethics of particular actions surrounding these issues. For example, one thing that advocates for change might do is to post preprints on PhilArchive or PhilSci Archive, normalizing the practice. But, is it ethical to do this?  Last week, I asked whether journals or referees care whether authors post preprints--and I'm glad I did. For, as Jake Nebel chimed in, at least one philosophy journal, Ethics, does care about this. Their official editorial policy for Submission Eligibility reads:

We ask that authors not post or publish online manuscripts that they have submitted or will be submitting to Ethics, as doing so may compromise the anonymous review process or may disqualify the submission on grounds of prior publication.

So, I'm curious about a couple of things. First, irrespective of whether other journals have a policy like this, is it ethical for authors to post preprints--either on an online archive or on their person website--prior to journal submission (given the manner in which it might compromise anonymized peer review)? If it's not ethical, what alternative steps for promoting reform to peer review (for those of us who advocate for reform) are ethical? I'm really curious to hear what everyone thinks!

Tips for reviewing book proposals?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, ECR asks:

I have recently received my first invitation to review a book proposal, and was wondering what are the main things to consider as a referee. Should I go about in a similar way I would review a journal article, or should I be stricter with regard to originality, potential impact, or other aspects?

This is an excellent question, and I'm really curious to hear what readers think. My (admittedly anecdotal) sense is that the reviewing standards for book proposals are quite different than for journal articles. Because it's normally taken for granted that an author of a book manuscript will have ample time to revise the manuscript prior after receiving a contract (prior to a final "clearance review" of the final manuscript prior to publication), the job of a book proposal reviewer isn't to decide whether the book is publishable as-is. It is to give the editors a recommendation as to whether the book seems promising enough to either (A) place a full draft of the manuscript under review, or (B) offer a contract...

Writing papers that overlap significantly

In our July "how can we help you?" thread, T asks:

I have two papers that deal with the same issue but from slightly different perspectives. Paper 1 has been accepted for publication. Paper 2 is a work in progress. Paper 2 utilizes and relies upon a criticism of a view that I develop more fully in paper 1. However, how do I incorporate this criticism in paper 2 without plagiarizing myself? I figure I should first cite myself, of course. But then can I basically copy and paste? Or should I rephrase the criticism, or expand it? How to go about this? Thanks!

These are good questions. I've faced this issue many times, and I normally try to rewrite things significantly for a few different reasons.

Do journals/referees care about preprints?

There's been quite a bit of talk in the discipline in recent years about how overwhelmed journals are with submissions these days, and what to do about it. Liam Kofi Bright, Remco Heesen, and I argue in our paper, "Jury Theorems for Peer-Review", for transitioning to a crowdsourced approach where (much as in math and physics) authors would standardly upload preprints to an online repository (e.g. PhilArchive) and have papers openly reviewed there. Although Bright and Heesen argue elsewhere for abolishing peer-review at journals altogether, I demur. In math and physics, authors standardly upload preprints to the ArXiv prior to sending papers to journals. ArXiv papers are often discussed publicly on blogs and the like, and often a fairly clear consensus emerges on the merits of the paper. Papers can also be revised in light of feedback, and new versions uploaded. But none of this takes place instead of journal review. Authors still send their papers to journals, and there's still a formal peer-review process in addition to the more informal public peer-review for preprints. 

I like this hybrid model for several reasons. First, it seems to have worked quite well in math and physics. Second, it seems like a kind of "best of both worlds" approach. In my experience, some people are (understandably) skeptical about moving to an open, crowdsourced-only approach. Keeping formal peer-review at journals may assuage those who are skeptical of that alternative, ensuring that journals still serve a purpose: namely, ensuring that there is a stage of peer-review where hand-selected experts and editors with demonstrable expertise put a formal "stamp of approval" on a paper. On the flip side, a crowdsourced approach may serve as a helpful kind of "calibration check" on how journals are doing in this regard, and vice versa. If open, online reviews of particular papers diverged substantially from journal decisions, then it could be illuminating to examine why. For example, as I've noted before, a pretty wide variety of influential and Nobel Prize-winning economics papers were rejected from very good journals--and as Bright, Heesen, and I note in our paper, there's a pretty substantial literature that indicates a conservative bias in peer-review, which we contend may be partially explainable in terms of journal incentives (e.g. greater incentives to reject than accept), etc. So, having both types of peer-review work side-by-side could be very illuminating.

Do editors pay attention to past rejections?

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

Maybe this calls for speculation, but I wonder if other readers have their own sense of whether journal reviews are truly blind. In particular, I am curious if others have the sense that, after they have been rejected at a journal a particular number of times, over a particular span of years, their new submissions receive less consideration than others.

I certainly hope this isn't the case! And, being a quasi-Bayesian, I'd understand if it were. I just find myself thinking, with respect to certain journals, that my rejection pile is so substantive that (maybe?) they are inclined to reject an article of mine based on past evidence.

This is an interesting query, and I'm curious to hear from authors and editors! Here are couple of quick thoughts...

Dealing with harsh journal rejections?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

How do you deal with very critical rejections at journals, the sort that claims that there is almost nothing good in your paper?

I have submitted a draft to 3 places so far, the first two are top ones, and I got mixed reviews recommending acceptance and rejection (which also contains encouraging comments). Then I submitted to a third one, not so top, as the possibly last try. To my surprise, the two referee reports are very negative and criticize everything I said that they selected as "superficial" "mistaken" "not minimally novel" etc. While I try to take in everything the referees say, it is painful to do that. Do you have such experience and how do you deal with it? Also, do you know why less top journals can give much more harsh reports? That seems counterintuitive. (In the early rejections, even for the negative part the referees only say something like the arguments are not as decisive as the author seem to think, not utterly dismissive.) Thanks a lot.

This is a great query, and I'm very curious to hear from readers. Here are my thoughts and experiences...

Why do stages of peer review take so long?

In our July "how can we help you?" thread, S asks:

I submitted an article to a journal 1.5 months ago, and it has not been sent out to reviewers yet. Is this standard?

I'm an early-career person, so I really need publications at the moment and am becoming nervous.

Another reader, 'R&R', reported being in a similar position:

I came to post about the same thing as S. I submitted a *revision* to a journal two months ago, and it hasn't been sent back out for review. It's just gone from "Editor Assigned" to "Editor Invited" and then back again. Is there any reason at all that it should take that long to send a revision back to its original reviewers? And at what point is it appropriate to say something to the editors about it?

Unfortunately, my sense is that this kind of stuff is pretty standard, and I've experienced it myself. I'll also second S's point that this is a real issue for early-career people who need publications to get a job and/or tenure and promotion. I was often totally stressed earlier in my career about how long peer-review took, and it influenced my publication strategy (such as which journals to send things to) a great deal.

Norms for writing, research, and citations

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

It is a probably basic question about academic norms. When you write a paper, concerning any train of thought (claims, arguments, etc.), should you simply think about it on your own and write it out as your own plus a reference to similar work if you do find such work, *or* search the literature and try to find if someone else makes similar claims, arguments, etc., and then simply explain this person's idea in your paper, not claiming it to be your own even if you come up with it yourself? I intend this to be a very general question---the choice in question can occur any number of times when writing a paper. Thanks in advance.

This is a great query, and it echoes a set of questions raised by NK in this thread a few months ago:

I wonder if it might be worth starting a more general discussion here about the *point* of citation. I, for one, would be interested to hear others' views on when, and why, one *ought* to cite a given work.

One suggestion made above is that you ought to (try to) cite everything relevant. Another (to which I take Helen to have objected, though the following is an attempt to describe it a bit more charitably) would be that you ought to cite relevant work that you think is good/worth reading and engaging with. These obvious differ in at least one important way: on the latter proposal, citations would be prestige-markers; on the former, they wouldn't.

Are there other options? And what is there to be said for and against each option?

I'm also curious what others think of the following sociological hypothesis: when you cite "low-prestige" work (whatever exactly that means), you thereby lower the perceived prestige of your own (i.e., the citing) work, in the sense that others are going to be less likely to read your work and/or take it seriously (if/when they take note of the character of your citations).

N.K.'s last point (that citing "low-prestige work" can lower the perceived prestige of your own) is one of the main reasons that I think authors are under an obligation to do some basic research--via doing some simple searches for key words in PhilPapers and Google Scholar--before writing, and to cite and/or discuss explicitly up front any relevant precursors (including similar arguments) to the one they intend to write about.

Bias against innovation in peer review?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I don't know if this is the place to ask, but I wonder if there is some bias against innovative research in our profession, including publication. Do you have the impression that oftentimes the more interesting research has a harder time of being published than a very polished but a little boring paper? I have gone through a few rounds of grad student admissions, and I found that many colleagues are more sympathetic towards all-round okay candidates than those who appear to be very innovative but not so okay in some respects. I judge the latter to have a higher intellectual ability but the former seems to be standardly preferred. Sorry about the ranting---I am not sure if it makes sense to anybody besides me.

This is an interesting question, and I'm curious what readers think. Thankfully, there's actually quite a bit of research on this question on peer review in general, which Liam Kofi Bright, Remco Heesen, and I briefly touch upon on pp. 21-22 in our forthcoming BSPS paper, "Jury Theorems for Peer Review." In brief, to the extent that this has been studied, peer review does appear to have a conservative/status quo bias (see also here). But, in a way, this seems entirely natural to me. As the saying goes, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Insofar as innovative work takes chances and pushes the envelope (so to speak), it's quite natural for readers to be skeptical about it (this also just seems plausibly on Bayesian grounds). Fortunately, if the history of philosophy and science have shown anything, it's that innovative work can pass peer review regardless--and, of course, most of us serve as reviewers. So, if the OP is frustrated by what they take to be a bias against innovation, there are at least two things they can try to do to change things: try to publish innovative work and be open to it as a reviewer!

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

Dealing with unresponsive journals (again)?

In our newest "how can we help you?", a reader asks:

Here's a(nother) question about dealing with unresponsive journals:

I submitted a paper last summer (2021). It is with a good journal in my subfield and is one of my better papers. It initially received a 'revise and resubmit, no commitment to publishing' in November '21, and I resubmitted in December '21. The paper has been untouched since then (i.e., for about seven months). The editors have not responded to two emails asking whether the paper is still actively under review.

When do I pull out? At the nine-month mark? The one-year mark? I would of course like to publish with them, but continuing to wait could lead to problems for my career. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Good questions. We've discussed how to handle slow and unresponsive journals before, but the question seems to come up fairly often, so I think it's important to discuss. Personally, I think I'd send the editors one more email and pull the paper within a week or two if they don't respond. There are always other good journals out there, and if you got a revise-and-resubmit at this journal, chances are you'll get one (or perhaps even an acceptance) at another good journal. But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

Thanking previous referees in submissions?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I have a paper that was rejected from a journal, but with an unbelievably helpful referee report that is instrumental in rewriting the paper. How do I acknowledge this anonymous reviewer when I resubmit the paper to a new journal? Is it odd to acknowledge a reviewer from a previous journal's review process in a new submission?

Good question. Another reader submitted the following reply:

[U]sually submissions should not include any acknowledgements, so then there's no problem. Once the paper is accepted and you add acknowledgements you can acknowledge a reviewer from a previous journal.

I respectfully disagree. When I submit papers to journals, I often include acknowledgments to anonymous referees--usually in footnotes at places in the paper that have been substantially revised due to referees' suggestions. I don't mention which journal(s) the referees were from, as I think that could introduce biases into the review process. But I tend to thank referees because I think they deserve the acknowledgment, and because I worry that if I incorporated a ton of their feedback into the paper without acknowledging them, it might irritate them (or worse) if they are asked to review the paper again for the new journal. I've also never been asked to remove these kinds of acknowledgments in an initial submission precisely because they are anonymized (though if I ever were asked to remove them, of course I would). My understanding at any rate, has always been that the reason that journals ask you to "remove acknowledgments" is to preserve anonymized review and prevent bias (which might occur, obviously, if you write things like, "I thank Derek Parfit and audiences at NYU and Princeton for their feedback").

Anyway, this is just what I do and my experience with my approach. What do you all think?

Deciding whether to review a paper?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, an early grad student writes:

I'm wondering how to decide whether to referee a paper. I just got my first request, and from what I can gather from the abstract, this doesn't seem like an editorial call I'm particularly qualified to make. Would appreciate any thoughts.

This is a great query. Another reader (an editor) submitted the following reply:

Do not agree to referee a paper you believe you are not qualified to referee. Referees are to give their expert opinion - if you are not an expert, then your opinion is irrelevant.

I think this seems right as far as it goes (if a bit blunt!), but I'm curious whether we might be able to give the OP more helpful positive advice. How do you decide whether to review a paper? 

Advice for a 'journal horror story'?

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

I have an ongoing journal horror story and I could use some advice.

I submitted a paper to a journal in March 2021, almost 14 months ago. Around 5 months in I started contacting the journal about the paper's status once a month. The managing editor's replies were very uninformative each time, but after a while they said that the journal was in the process of looking for a new publisher and that everything was slowed down as a result.

Once a year had passed I decided to contact the chief editor of the journal. The journal has a triple blind review review process, so I sent an anonymized email. A week later I got an R&R verdict on the paper, with quite positive reviews. I also got an apologetic letter from the managing editor, which revealed some details about the process. Apparently, everything in the journal has to go through the managing editor. At one point, the subject editor handling the manuscript had a query for the chief editor regarding the paper. The query had to go through the managing editor, who decided not to pass it along for now. It sat there for three months, because the managing editor thought that the chief editor should only be bothered with stuff regarding the new publisher deal. It was passed along to the chief editor only once I reached out.

I submitted a revision a month ago, and the paper is still stuck at the "undergoing initial checking" stage, which usually takes a day or two. I contacted the managing editor again, who said, as they did many times before, that they're busy with this new publishing deal and my paper will move to the next stage very soon.

I'm afraid it will be months before the paper is even passed along to a subject editor and then to reviewers, and it might get new reviewers and who knows what will happen then. I'm not sure what to do. Should I contact the chief editor again? I don't want to bother them again but I don't know what else to do.

I have to confess that I'm really not sure what to advise here. Given that the revision has only been there a month, and R&R reviews can routinely take several months, I'm not sure that I would check in with the chief editor yet. Then again, given what happened during the first round review process, maybe checking in makes sense. I guess if it were me, I might wait another month or so, but again, I'm not sure. What do you all think?

Journal formatting requirement info?

A reader writes in:

Are you aware of any resource that has grouped journals according to their basic formatting requirements (these journals are straight Chicago; these journals are straight APA; these journals are Chicago with modifications X, Y, & Z)?  I’m just thinking that might be a massive time-saver for picking the next journal after a rejection.

This is a good question. My sense is that traditionally, most journals have permitted initial submissions to be in any professional format, only requiring authors to put their manuscripts in the journal's style upon acceptance. However, my recent experience is that an increasing number of journals seem to be requiring a very specific format (e.g. Chicago) to even consider a submission (presumably to decrease submissions?). Obviously, this can be a real inconvenience to authors, so it would be great to hear in the comments section whether there are any resources available online where this kind of information is compiled. Alternatively (or in addition), it might be good to compile in the comments section which journals require a specific style at first submission.