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    The McMaster Department of Philosophy has now put together the following notice commemorating Barry: Barry Allen: A Philosophical Life Barry…

A Proposal about Single-Submissions and Timeliness of Refereeing of Articles

Brian Leiter

A young philosopher writes:

Currently, young faculty and grad students can find it to be very difficult to get published in top journals since so many of these journals can take so long (one journal took 18 months to get back to me with a rejection!). On the other hand, in my experience with A-level journals, Phil and Public Affairs and Nous have been incredibly efficient. Phil Studies and Journal of Political Philosophy – journals with medium reputations – have also been pretty efficient.

As you’ve pointed out before, for junior faculty this puts us in a real bind. We can always pull our submissions after N months and submit it somewhere else, but that could have two drawbacks. First, it could burn bridges. Second, suppose I think I have a reasonable chance at getting a paper published in a top journal — ought I to wait it out or should I go for a less-than-top journal just because they have a quick turnaround time? The latter might get me an extra line on my CV but in most cases, one publication in a top journal is better than, say, three in a middle tier journal (e.g., because a piece in a top journal is more likely to be read by others).

So, I wonder if you would put out the following proposal for comment:

All authors would be *released* from the commitment not to submit their essays to other journals if the initial journal does not respond with a summary judgment (R, R&R, CA, or A) on the paper within 90 days of submission. The author would NOT be responsible for informing the editor of his/her decision to submit elsewhere.

Rather, because of the poor editorial and refereeing efficiency, the author would be free to start shopping his/her paper to another journal without having to tell anyone (including the second journal, since that would prejudice the editorial process against the author).

If this seems unworkable because it requires an honor system amongst those submitting the essay, note that the *entire* blind review system depends upon an honor system, namely the referees honoring their commitment to referee in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, many referee DO NOT referee in a timely fashion. So, the honor system as it is currently constructed, is failing.

Thoughts?  Signed comments strongly preferred, and post only once, comments may take awhile to appear.

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50 responses to “A Proposal about Single-Submissions and Timeliness of Refereeing of Articles”

  1. Richard Greene

    This proposal strikes me as being unfair to the editors and referees, etc. at the second journal. They would be working in good faith on a mistaken assumption. Moreover, while the first journal is being penalized for not being prompt, the penalty (i.e., having others looking at the submission simultaneously) is applied to the second journal upon submission.

    Reply
  2. J.C. Berendzen

    As a late-stage assistant professor, I have all the same worries as the "young philosopher." But I have doubts about the proposal.

    Before getting to those doubts, it is worth emphasizing that one thing that can help with this problem (and which fits with the current system, is already in place, and is relatively easy to use) is the Philosophy Journal Information wiki. Just knowing which journals have quick turn-around times and which don't makes a huge difference. Of course, the wiki is only as good as the information that we all put into it, so I strongly encourage everyone to keep updating and expanding it.

    Now for the proposal: One thing that seems really odd about this proposal to me is that it treats journals asymmetrically. There is an assumption that the first journal one sends something to deserves to be accorded single-submission status, but after 90 days, all other journals are not given the same treatment.

    If we believe that journals have reason to value the single-submission rule, this proposal is unjust, because it punishes one journal (the second journal, which has been stripped of single submission status) for the misdeeds (slow editing) of another journal. If we don't really believe that the single-submission rule is that valuable, then the proposal is needlessly complex–why not just do away with the rule altogether, at least for junior faculty?

    Reply
  3. David Velleman

    I understand the frustration motivating this proposal, but the proposal itself is not realistic. It would impose sanctions for tardy refereeing not on the tardy referee but (a) on the editor of the journal, who would have no more power to obtain timely reports than before; and (b) on the journal to which the paper was subsequently submitted while still being under review elsewhere. These sanctions would be almost entirely unproductive.

    One trend that has greatly burdened the peer-review system in recent years is the increasing pressure toward publication that is now placed on graduate students in many Ph.D. programs. Junior faculty who need refereed publications for tenure are now competing, not just for column inches but for access to conscientious referees, with large numbers of graduate students. Again, I understand the professional pressures that have fueled this trend, but it is a largely self-amplifying phenomenon: the more job candidates there are with publications on their CVs, the more pressure there is to have publications before becoming a job candidate. In my view, this premature professionalization is not good for the discipline.

    Philosophers' Imprint (the journal I co-edit) treats graduate-student submissions equally with faculty submissions and will continue to do so. But setting aside my editor's hat and speaking for myself rather than the journal, I would favor a general agreement on some way of putting the brakes on graduate-student publication. Such an arrangement might ease some of the bottlenecks currently plaguing the peer-review process.

    Reply
  4. Carrie Jenkins

    I've wondered about this too, and the idea has its attractions. One problem with it, though, is the unfairness to the second journal you submit to. *They* haven't been editorially inefficient (at least not yet), but they run the risk of wasting their time refereeing your essay which they later find they can't publish because the first journal (the inefficient one) is getting it.

    Reply
  5. Dave Estlund

    Just a reminder that the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy allows simultaneous submissions with notification. The link takes you to the official policy. Obviously, this only helps when there are other journals that also allow it, but law journals, for example, often do.

    Reply
  6. Justin Sytsma

    While I very much appreciate the young philosopher's concerns, the proposal seems rather unfair to the second journal. While the argument might be made that the first journal forfeited its right to sole consideration by taking too long, that argument does not apply to the second journal. Imagine Journal A takes 150 days to notify an author of an acceptance, but at the 90th day mark the author submitted the paper to Journal B. After receiving the Journal A acceptance, does the author now notify Journal B (in effect letting them know that they have been wasting their (and their reviewers') time for the past 60 days)? Does the author ask Journal A to wait while they give Journal B another 30 days?

    Reply
  7. Mark Eli Kalderon

    I doubt that the problem with turn around times at some journal has primarily to do with referees not taking their responsibilities seriously. Rather, due to pressure from the tenure process, the RAE in the UK, the sense that graduate students must publish to increase their chances in the job market,…, the journal system is simply swamped. Some evidence of this is provided by journals going on hiatus from submissions in order to catch up with their backlog. If the problem with turn around times is that there are far too many submissions, then the current proposal merely exacerbates the problem.

    I think that it is important to recognize that there are lots of reasons that a submission may take time to process not all of which have to do with editors' or referees' irresponsibility. Even finding a referee can be problematic. Recently I was asked to referee something. I turned it down since I was swamped at work and already refereeing a number of things. Two months later I was asked whether I could referee the paper. The journal had failed to find a referee and was wondering if my schedule was now free. The paper was not sitting on my desk gathering dust, it had merely not yet found a referee. Nor is it irresponsible to say no to refereeing requests. I say yes when I can. Sometimes, I cannot. There is nothing wrong in that.

    If we are to have a frank and constructive discussion of the problems with the peer review system, it is best to abandon the moralizing assumption that someone is to blame for long turn around times. It is not editorial and refereeing "misdeeds" that is to blame; but the institutional forces that are presently distorting the market.

    Reply
  8. Joe Olechnowicz

    I suspect that if the proposal were enacted, then the review backlog of top journals would increase significantly. This would just make it less likely that papers sent to them would be reviewed within 90 days.

    Professor Velleman's suggestion seems very practical, but might have the drawback of penalizing graduates of smaller and less prestigious programs. Perhaps a move towards collaborative efforts between graduate students and faculty would be a step in the right direction.

    Reply
  9. Roger Albin

    I'm a non-philosopher with considerable experience in publishing and reviewing scientific articles. If young philosopher's experience with top philosophy journals is typical, then these journals are acting irresponsibly. Turn around times of greater than a few weeks are considered unacceptable by good scientific journals, and the very best journals in my field are generally distinguished by very rapid turnaround times. Three months is certainly enough time to make a decision about a paper, even the lengthy papers philosophers publish. The 3 month cutoff is a reasonable time frame, though it would be inappropriate to have an article undergoing simultaneous review by 2 journals. Professor Velleman's proposed solution would penalize ambitious students. The best solution to this problem would be for promotions committees to accord increased respect and weight in the promotions process for peer reviewing.

    Reply
  10. Colin Farrelly

    The young philosopher writes:

    “Currently, young faculty and grad students can find it to be very difficult to get published in top journals since so many of these journals can take so long (one journal took 18 months to get back to me with a rejection!).”

    This touches on a larger theme that we have debated before on this blog- the state (e.g. transparency, accountability, etc.) of the discipline’s most esteemed journals. Two years ago we debated this at
    http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2006/08/time_to_end_inh.html

    The reality is that some of the most prestigious journals in philosophy (unlike most academic disciplines) do not have to ensure timely reports on submissions. Nor do they have to provide information on the breakdown of areas of submission they receive (e.g. metaphysics, ethics, etc.); heck, maybe they even won’t referee papers blindly (or send it to reviewers outside their own dept). What are you going to do about it? Nothing. And so the status quo continues.

    Those grad students that cannot afford to drag their PhD studies out for a decade (to retain their “newly minted PhD status!”) will end up submitting their work to journals with quicker review times, even if it means giving up the chance of getting published in the journals with the most prestige. But such is the state of the discipline. Many profit from this status quo and see little reason to change things. And the rest have little power to do anything about it.

    Cheers,
    Colin

    Reply
  11. Brian (not Leiter)

    I have a different proposal that could help reduce lengthy response times. To combat the problem, journals could give authors two different options when submitting a paper. One would be to receive comments and expect the normal response time, and the other would be to forgo them and be "guaranteed" a decision within 3-4 months. This proposal obviously assumes that a significant number of delays are due to the commitment of referees to providing lengthy or substantive commentary, even when they are simply rejecting the paper. If an author is willing to forgo commentary, I see no problem with this proposal. There could be drawbacks. Perhaps it might encourage authors to send out so many more papers on a whim that it would bring us back to exactly the same response times. But perhaps not. I think a proposal along these lines merits further consideration. In any case, if it would not work, I fail to see what we are not already doing that could reduce response times.

    Reply
  12. LK McPherson

    There is an obvious solution to this problem–given a near-consensus (on-the-record) that allowing simultaneous submissions would be deeply unfair to editors and referees, even as the untenured too often may wait 6, 8, 10 months or more for a rejection with no or few comments. Less emphasis could be placed on the prestige of journals–at least within more expansive prestige classes–and more emphasis could be placed directly on the quality of a tenure candidate's articles. This would mean that tenure referees could not as readily cite "publications lack distinction" (i.e., prestige) as a reason to deny tenure–but this does not seem an unfair burden.

    Relatedly, untenured philosophers would be well advised not to believe that they have "a reasonable chance" of getting a paper accepted at "a top journal," most narrowly construed. First, the acceptance percentages, even at mid-tier journals, generally tell against this. Second, no matter how great you think your paper is, the review process generally is too much of a crapshoot to be confident that others will see your paper that way. So it is prudent to plan expecting that your paper will be rejected at the top-tier journal where it currently would be under review.

    Reply
  13. Doug Portmore

    I share the young philosopher's concerns, but I don't like the proposal for reasons that have already been cited above. I do think that we should all do what we can to put pressure on journals to operate in an efficient, transparent, and conscientious manner — if they don't already. I think that at a minimum journals should do the following:

    (1) publish statistics on the time between the receipt of a manuscript and the notification of the author of the initial decision.
    (2) publish statistics on the time between the acceptance of a manuscript and its appearance in print — that is, make public the extent of any backlog that they may have.
    (3) make public the details of the journal's editorial procedures, as Analysis, the Philosophical Review, and the Australasian Journal of Philosophy do on their respective web sites. (These sites describe, for instance, the various stages of the review process, how decisions are reached, whether authors should expect comments, whether the process is blind or not, etc.)
    (4) keep the requirements in preparing manuscripts for submission to a bare minimum. Authors should not have to ensure that their manuscripts conform to the journal’s style at the submission stage. Of course, some requirements that will make the review of manuscripts easier on editors and referees — such as, double-spacing and wide margins — are in order.
    (5) ought, within two weeks, to notify authors of receipt of their manuscripts and where possible indicate the approximate time needed for evaluation. After this period of time, inquiries from the author concerning the status of his or her submission should be met with a prompt and courteous reply.
    (6) provide a verdict or an explanation for the delay within 6 months of the submission date, and within 3 months if the verdict won't include comments from reviewers.

    At least those of us with tenure, should favor journals who meet such minimal standards over those that don't when it comes to submitting our best work and to agreeing to requests to review manuscripts. The success of a journal depends on both the quality of its submissions and the quality of its reviewers. So we can determine which journals prosper and which journals don't.

    To my mind, the issue is largely one of a lack of transparency. If journals were transparent, they would, I think, automatically feel the pressure to run efficiently, for we all would, I think, choose to submit to the more efficient journals, other things being equal. So I think that it is no crime for a journal to routinely take over 6 months to reach a verdict and to rarely provide any comments with a rejection even when it takes over 6 months to reach that verdict. What's reprehensible is that some journals do this, but then do their best to keep this information hidden. Even worse, I suspect some journals provide inaccurate or out-dated information to authors. I think that this young philosopher's concerns could be met largely if only journals provided the information that such philosophers need to make informed decisions.

    Since many journals fail to be transparent, I started the Philosophy Journal Wiki (see http://wikihost.org/wikis/philjinfo/wiki/start ) so that people could share their own experiences with journals. I encourage people to share their experiences (good and bad). Of course, the wiki is no substitute for the hard data that journals such as Ethics provide — see, for instance, here http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/510403 . Where such objective data is provided, I encourage people to look to that first and foremost, and I have tried to make clear on the wiki where a journal does provide such objective data.

    Reply
  14. West Coast Public Univ. philosopher

    As someone who's been frustrated on both sides of the debate (i.e., as an author and as an editor), here's my proposal: Get rid of the non-simultaneous submission requirement for ALL journals.

    By 'leaving it up to the free market', this would motivate the editors to quickly respond to an author, not necessarily with a definitive response but at least with a note back that the journal is interested and please give us the first right of refusal for the next 30-60-90 days. After that time limit expires, the author is free to submit again elsewhere; again, this second journal has no expectation of exclusive review unless they reply back with interest first.

    Sound reasonable? Even so, I doubt anything like this would be adopted, since the 'top-tier' journals have a monopoly of influence and can continue to make authors wait an unreasonable amount of time. Funny how 'justice' and 'fairness' are concepts lost in the business of philosophy, if not also the job market…

    Reply
  15. Keith DeRose

    1. I don't endorse the "young philosopher's" proposal, even with this modification. But insofar as the problem people have with the proposal is that it unjustly punishes the second journal, it seems that problem could be fixed if the proposal were modified so that, in submitting the paper to the second journal, an author is giving that second journal the rights to the paper if they accept it. In submitting a paper, you are giving the journal n days of the right to have the paper if they accept it. After n days, you can submit it elsewhere, to one other journal, and that new journal now has the right to the paper for n days. If the first decides after n days that they want the paper, then they get it if the second journal refuses it or takes more than n days to decide. Of course, this could make journals reluctant to accept a paper after they've had it for n days. But I'm not sure the policy should have that effect: If the first journal decides they do want the paper, then accepting it so that they'll get it under certain conditions makes more sense than rejecting it. Of course, all kinds of issues (that I won't address) are raised by revise-and-resubmit responses. And this does have the drawback of having multiple sets of referees judging a paper, thereby putting the strain on the system that some commentators here seem justifiably worried about.

    2. "Brian (not Leiter)"'s suggestion (July 24, 2008 at 01:12 PM) seems worth careful consideration. As a referee, the time I put into a paper is largely taken up by writing out my comments. If it were just a matter of reading the paper & reaching a decision, well, I could usually do that pretty quickly. With the task being a shorter and easier one, I'd probably get started on it & get it done much more quickly. As an author, I have greatly benefited from referee's comments, but I think it would be often be worth it to give that up in order to get a quick decision. (But some of the horror stories I've heard involve cases in which journals take an extremely long time and still reject without providing comments.)

    Reply
  16. Keith DeRose

    Doug Portmore's above suggestions (July 24, 2008 at 01:45 PM) sound good to me.

    Reply
  17. David Sobel

    Portmore's suggestions seem wise to me. And they would help make things better.

    Reply
  18. West Coast Public Univ. philosopher

    Portmore's suggestion is indeed sound…but it would involve too much work on the part of the journal. Again, what incentive would they have to disclose such statistics — to avoid an unlikely boycott by tenured philosophers? If that's any leverage at all, then we should all disregard the non-simultaneous requirement right now; the journals will get the hint, and no bridges will be burned because so many folks would be doing it.

    I'm not a staunch advocate of 'the free market' (which does not exist anyway), but it seems that there are levers the invisible hand of the market can pull to promote a more timely response by te journals. Apart from my previous suggestion, we could simply petition our libraries to not subscribe to those journals; hit them where it hurts. (Though again this assumes the boycott route would work, and I don't think it would. Philosophers can't even organize around the adjunct issue, much less around something less urgent as this.)

    Reply
  19. Neil

    Except for journals run 'in house', the problem is not editors, but referees. And that means YOU, dear reader. It just doesn't take all that long to read a paper, think about it a bit and write helpful comments. If you're not willing to do this in two weeks, then decline the task. And be willing to do it in two weeks, at least several times a year: that should be the entry cost for submitting to journals yourself. I know of too many referees who have taken on the task of refereeing a paper and then *never* returned emails, letters or phonecalls.

    Reply
  20. Jamie

    What Neil says makes sense, except that the response times differ *so* much from journal to journal — just look at the wiki Doug linked. If editors could get papers in the hands of reviewers as fast as the fastest journals do, then surely the turnaround times would improve dramatically.

    Reply
  21. Mark Eli Kalderon

    Neil, two weeks can seem like plenty of time…if you have nothing else to do, but that is rarely the case. More importantly, it takes very little time to decide whether a paper is publishable or not, it takes a tremendous amount of time to write *useful* comments. Most of the time refereeing is agonising the precise form of words of the report.

    Reply
  22. Andrew Cling

    Brian (not Leiter)'s suggestion that authors have the option to opt out of getting comments might speed up the decision process. As a referee, I know pretty quickly what to recommend, but composing helpful comments takes much longer. What is to be done, however, if the submitter selects the "no comments" option but the referee's suggestion is "revise and resubmit"? That requires comments. Is the referee to reject such papers in the interest of speedy decisions? In any case, my own experience with submissions has been that referee's comments have been very helpful to me in making revisions to my papers. So I'm not sure if the sometimes lengthy delays in getting comments haven't shortened the overall time it has taken me to get some papers into print. With very few exceptions, I have found the comments on my papers to have been very thoughtful and helpful. So unless a candidate is particularly pressed to get publications, it might be worthwhile to take the "get comments" option. I do have some horror stories about long waits from "top rank" publications that resulted in pathetic comments. (As an aside, since when did Phil Studies become a journal with a "medium" reputation? I find the articles published there to be of consistently high quality and Stew Cohen is an editor who will go above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that authors are given fair and helpful reviews.)

    Reply
  23. Neil

    I knew I would get the response that two weeks is too short, especially with other demands on time. I just don't believe it is that hard to referee a paper. Oh sure, it's hard if the paper is outside your area of expertise, but then you shouldn't be refereeing it. Think of the experience of going to presentations of papers. If the paper is in your area, you can usually (a) judge its quality and (b) contribute something useful on how it can be improved or what is wrong with it, right? We do this all the time, on the basis of hearing a person talk through a paper once. The great majority of referee's comments are no more extensive or insightful than the better responses to papers in these forums (indeed, I suspect they are lower). And that includes the referee reports from the best journals. I have published about 80 papers (which means I have submitted several hundred) and I think I have twice got referee reports that require several hours work to write. How come every reviewer, when considering how long they need, sets themselves a standard that is so much higher than the average?

    I review for many journals, including five of the top ten on the Weatherson survey. I have never taken more than two weeks. Maybe I am much more slapdash than average, but I doubt it.

    Reply
  24. Christopher Morris

    Young philosophers are in a difficult position as they need publications, at least by the time they are coming up for tenure, and now, at all but the elite universities, much earlier in their careers. And older faculty are swamped with work reviewing articles and book manuscripts. I must now turn down more than two-thirds the requests I receive, and I constantly feel I do too many.

    In my experience what's difficult and time-consuming about reviewing a journal article is writing the comments. And very often (but not always), a quick read is sufficient to determine whether the piece is a serious candidate for publication in the journal.

    My recommendation is to revert to the old system that some journals like Phil Rev once had. Rejections come quickly, with no comments from reviewers. (Brian Not-Leiter recommends something similar.) Better a quick no than a rejection some 9-14 mos later. That's not the only relevant comparison, but junior philosophers often get a good number of rejections which are especially costly to them.

    I also recommend that solutions not create even more work for over-worked editors.

    Reply
  25. Jack W.

    I find the presumption that it takes months to review and comment on a journal submission odd. Consider the medical sciences — these journals have electronic submissions and they have turn around times of roughly two to three weeks. These referees have to check arguments, data, literature, methodology, and they do so with a level of detail that we philosophers rarely need. As some have written already, when an article is within our area of expertise, we form an opinion very quickly and can write a response in a few hours.

    The main difference between the medical sciences and philosophy is the timeliness of the paper. Because medical journals must have information published immediately or the article becomes obsolete (or gets scooped), the referees are motivated to reply quickly. Because "so little" depends on philosophy, referees are motivated by very little and the paper remains on our desks for too long.

    Shouldn't this be something the APA gets involved with? (I still have no idea what they do with my dues other than send out JFP and charge me to go to conferences.) It seems given the tremendous competition to publish in journals, there is an implicit incentive not only to reject papers but to stall in such rejections.

    Additionally, it is not just junior faculty who are harmed by this process. We tenured folks, should we want to move, get promoted, or compete for resources/prizes, etc. are also harmed by this practice.

    Finally, there is little that is more frustrating than waiting even two months for a response and then getting a rejection without any explanation at all. It should be a matter of simple respect that any author's work is responded to. We work for a year on an article, publish it for no remuneration, pay exorbitant and ever increasing prices for subscriptions (not to mention institutional subscription rates), and then as a final insult, the journals and referees dilly dally in the responses. The process just doesn't make sense to me.

    Reply
  26. Fritz Allhoff

    Like the others, I'm ambivalent to some of these proposals, particularly as they seem unfair to the second journal. But I really think that *something* has to be done about the ridiculous amounts of time that many journals are taking to get back to us. There is no doubt that many are understaffed, that there are too many submissions, and so on, but a year and more to review an essay is just too long. Just today, I had an article bounced back to me because I'd listed a conference that I'd presented it at in the first footnote; this violated their policy for blind review (even if that wasn't stated anywhere in submission guidelines). I wouldn't even care, but it took them *over two months* just to get this far, and this is a first-tier journal. One would have hoped for an answer within a month from now, and it's discouraging to see that review isn't even underway.

    At any rate, I think that we need to be conscientious in doing our reviewing promptly, writing reports, accepting articles for review, but I also think that there are minimal administrative expectations that we can have for journals in terms of getting our articles prepped and out for review. There's failings on both ends, of course, though I suspect everyone can do better.

    Reply
  27. Saul Smilansky

    One relevant issue is the length of submitted papers. This was recently discussed in the moral philosophy blog Ethics-Etc. For those interested, the link is here:

    http://ethics-etc.com/2008/05/02/why-do-ethicists-write-such-long-papers/

    Ethics-Etc also ran a poll asking "Do many people NOT write short papers because they believe that (with the exception of Analysis) the journals insist on longer papers?", with a discussion following there as well. The link is here:

    http://ethics-etc.com/2008/05/08/ethicists-write-longer-papers-poll/

    About 40%, incidentally, said Yes!

    I doubt if the problem is limited to ethics. If more people would begin to write shorter philosophical papers, and if journals would signal that they are happy to accept short papers, this as well could help speed up the process. It is not a coincidence that Analysis often responds within a month or less – a paper of two or three thousand words is much easier to read quickly.

    Of course some papers need to be long because of the sort of thing that the author is trying to do, and some people just like writing long papers even if this is not necessary (and that's fine). But although it would be nice if many referees were quicker with the longer papers, one way of improving things would be to write shorter papers, when possible.

    Reply
  28. Thom Brooks

    This is an excellent topic and there has been several helpful comments noted above. I will only comment on some disagrements:

    1. The 'young philosopher' and the '90 day rule'. I agree with virtually all commentators thus far that this is not a helpful idea. My best advice for any author is to contact the editor perhaps after two or three months to enquire about when she or he might expect to be told of the jounal's decision. Too many authors seem to believe they should just wait until they hear something (often on the grounds of not wanting to irritate editors). If you have not heard anything and a few months have passed, then it is perfectly reasonable to check in on a submission's status.

    2. The single-submission rule. This is a rule I would defend for philosophy journals (and the case is different for student-edited law journals). A philosophy journal normally claims that it is upholding certain standards. One problem with multiple submissions that — at least on some topics — the same people may well (and often) be asked to referee the same piece for different journals concurrently. I think this one burden too many. A second problem is that our journals should *not* be in a race against one another to see who can say 'yes' to a submission faster than a rival journal. Our project, as editors, is only to accept work of sufficient quality: it is important that sufficient time be granted to assess quality and acceptance decisions are not something to rush. [Note on Roger Albin's helpful post: philosophy journals are not science journals and they should be treated separately. I've never known of a philosophy article being re-tracked and pulled after publication, a situation known to happen with science journals.)

    3. Brian (not Leiter)'s proposal of two options. I do not think this would work. For example, let's take the Journal of Moral Philosophy. We accept about 10% of submissions: 90% are rejected. Wherever possible, I think it is important that those turned down are given some explanation. This is not always possible, but I would oppose options of avoiding comments. Moreover, of the 10% we accept, about two-thirds are accepted after revisions. This, if all authors submitting work went for the option of verdict-only, then we would not be able to award 'revise and resubmit' (as we'd be unable to provide comments) and we would accept about nothing. The situation with the JMP is not unique and any problems found in publishing now might become worse.

    4. I could not agree more with Lionel McPherson (if I have his point understood properly): committees should place a greater value on the quality of the work above the spot it appeared in.

    5. Doug Portman is correct that journals should provide this information — and this information is all published in an American Directory (including Canada — don't ask) and International Directory (including every country except the US and Canada) by the Philosophy Documentation Center. Along with other editors, I complete a questionnaire noting statistics and the review process annually. In addition, information is published each year in the JMP, not unlike other journals. The PDC's information is gathered from publishers and the editors.

    Reply
  29. David Chalmers

    My standard reviewing policy is as follows. Upon receiving a reviewing request, I either (a) write a review within a few days, and return the review with my agreement to write the review, or (b) do not write a review within a few days, and decline the invitation. As a result I say no a lot (and often say no instantly, when I know the review won't get done in a few days), but the reviews that I agree to do are done fast. I recommend this policy to others.

    Reply
  30. Doug Portmore

    I'm with Jamie. The problem can't be just with referees, as different journals clearly have different average response times. Some journals are clearly run more efficiently than others. One thing that I've noticed is that different journals give me different amounts of time to review a paper: 4, 6, 8, or more weeks. Also, some journals take a long time to even acknowledge that they received my report. I wonder if my report got into the hands of the appropriate editors before the managing editor got around to acknowledging receipt of it two weeks later. And, within the past year, I've even received a request to review via post to my campus address — this is very inefficient, especially given how infrequently I check my campus mail box during the summer months.

    West Coast Public Univ. philosopher wonders: "Again, what incentive would they have to disclose such statistics — to avoid an unlikely boycott by tenured philosophers?" One incentive is so that people's judgments will be made on more accurate information. People already have an idea of which journals are run inefficiently given the sort of anecdotal evidence they get from talking to colleagues, reading blogs like this one, and checking out the Phil Journals Wiki. And people do decide where to submit on the basis of these judgments. So some journals (at least, those that are run efficiently) have an incentive to get the word out. Also, some journals do provide statistics, and I think that many of us can and should favor those journals, other things being equal, when it comes to sending out our best work and agreeing to requests for review. I think that we do have some leverage. And I think that things like blogs and wikis are helping us to act collectively so as to put some collective pressure on journals to run in the sorts of ways that we want them to run. I think that the reason we can't use this sort of leverage to "disregard the non-simultaneous requirement right now" is that there is little consensus that we should abandon this requirement. My hope, though, is that we can reach consensus that journals should be as transparent as their resources allow.

    Of course, I'm also reluctant to make more work for over-worked editors. Nevertheless, some journals are more transparent than others. It seems perfectly fair for me to favor those that are run with greater transparency and efficiency. Lastly, I don't understand why so many journals that use electronic submission software (the sort that many Springer journals use) that do keep track of the date the article was submitted, the date the editor was assigned, the date referees were assigned, the date the initial decision reached, etc. can't publish the relevant statistics with little trouble at all. Surely, this advanced software keeps track of such statistics. Some journals, of course, are run on smaller budgets and don't have such fancy software. These journals would have to manually record information in a spreadsheet in order to keep track of such statistics. But don't journals do this already? Do some journals really run without this sort of minimal book-keeping?

    Reply
  31. Eric Schliesser

    In Europe, we are moving to a system in which all Government grant funding (which is fast becoming the only source of research support) is strictly a function of one's publication record in journals according to their ranking. I see little evidence that funding agencies (and their referees) or hiring departments read one's work. (I often encounter surprise that I read outside my AOSes.) No doubt once fairly reliable impact metrics become available in the Humanities, those will be included in the process. Most of the highly ranked journals are in the English speaking world. So the issues being discussed here have a wider impact.
    If I recall the earlier discussion on this list correctly, Alva Noe had a proposal for giving referees some of the credit of accepted papers. This might help improve the quality and efficiency of reviewing. (I take it there is little desire to move to a system of financial sticks and carrots, quite common in other fields, for submissions and referees.)

    Reply
  32. David Sobel

    When I referee a paper I read the paper, have an initial reaction, then try to justify that reaction in my written comments. Sometimes I find that I cannot do so. The criticism was confused. Dropping the expectation of comments might still be the way to go, but we should not kid ourselves that our reactions to papers will be as accurate without that important step.

    Reply
  33. Tom Hurka

    As a referee, you're not deciding whether or not a paper should be accepted. You're giving advice to an editor, who may weigh your advice against another referee's with the opposite advice, and also against his own judgement. So a simple 'yes' or 'no' isn't much use. He wants your *reasons* for recommending as you do, which means you have to write something for him. It may not be as long or as carefully worded as what you'd write for the author, but you have to write something — the option of no comments but just a thumbs up or down isn't realistic.

    Reply
  34. Christopher Hitchcock

    This is a great discussion of an important issue. There are two many suggestions to comment on them all. But here are a few thoughts.

    1. I think that the free market does have some power. For example, David Papineau took over the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science in the mid '90's, and instituted a policy of trying to respond to authors within 3 months. It was successful, and I think that the quality and the prestige of the journal improved dramatically. It certainly influenced my submission choices. Likewise, Philosophers' Imprint, which is a new 'upstart' journal, has managed to attract very high quality contributions, due in part to the promise of rapid publication (although that is slightly different from rapid response). So I think it is possible for journals to improve their status within the profession by being responsive to authors. What's less clear is whether similar market forces can put pressure on the already established journals (Mind, J. Phil, etc.).

    2. One compromise would be to give referees two deadlines: one (say one month) for a recommendation with a very brief explanation; then a later deadline (say two months) for more detailed comments. In cases where the editor can make a decision on the disposition of the paper on the basis of the recommendations alone (most likely to occur with rejections), this information can be passed on to the author. In the case of rejection, the author would then be free to send the paper elsewhere (or could choose to wait for the comments).

    3. Where possible, offer incentives for referees who return reports in a timely manner (discounts on books from the parent publisher, discounted subscription to the journal). I don't know to what extent this is economically feasible.

    4. To those of you who are taking forever to referee papers (and you know who you are): may your armpits become infested with the flies of a thousand camels!

    Reply
  35. West Coast Public Univ. philosopher

    There was a concern (on another blog) that eliminating the single-submission policy will actually slow down the review cycle.

    I don't see how this backs things up. Yes, an author would spam 5-10 journals with the paper, but all the journals need to do is give a 5-10 min. read-through of the paper and give a "Yes, we'll do a more thorough review if you give us first right of refusal (i.e., decline similar offers from other journals" or "No, this doesn't seem to be a fit because of ___."

    We can also devise a mechanism to minimize submission-spam: the journals can track the authors, and limit submissions to, say, 4 a year; or if their papers are summarily rejected more than 3 times, then they're automatically put on a lower-priority list of quick review.

    How about creating a website to manage all this?: A central location to accept submissions, farm them out to the requested journals, and then automatically contact the non-responding journals that the paper has been snapped up by another journal already (i.e., don't bother to read it now). Anyone? Doug P.? 🙂

    Contrary to Thom Brooks, it IS a race or competition among journals; you're fooling yourself if you think not. There's a race for the best papers, prestige, subscriptions, etc. So let's really let unbridled competition begin on both sides!

    Also, David Chalmers process sounds reasonable to me (since that's largely what I do too). If you've agreed to review and don't do it within a month, then YOU are part of the problem. But from my experience, most philosophers don't have the the time-management skills to be this disciplined…

    Reply
  36. Doug Portmore

    Thom Brooks writes:

    "Doug Portman [sic] is correct that journals should provide this information — and this information is all published in an American Directory (including Canada — don't ask) and International Directory (including every country except the US and Canada) by the Philosophy Documentation Center."

    If I recall, these directories do not provide the information that I'm asking for. Again, the sort of information that I think journals should provide include:

    (1) annual statistics on the time between the receipt of a manuscript and the notification of the author of the initial decision.
    (2) annual statistics on the time between the acceptance of a manuscript and its appearance in print — that is, make public the extent of any backlog that they may have.
    (3) annual statistics on how often reviewer reports accompany a decision that took more than just a month to reach (I want to allow the initial vetting by the editor-in-chief or an associate editor can be quick and result in a decision with no justification).
    (4) detailed information on the editorial process. For instance, I think that people should know that, to get published in Ethics, you have to get the recommendation of the Associate Editor, two referees, and the majority vote of the entire board of Associate Editors. Having gone through the process, I know that's how it works, or, at least, I know that's how it used to work. But I suspect that most young philosophers don't know this.

    Also, I think that it is important for (1)-(4) to be widely accessible, and not just accessible to those who are subscribers to the journal or who have access to the directories that Thom cites. But, again, I don't recall these directories citing the information that I'm calling for.

    Thom: Do you provide (1)-(4)? Is it accessible to anyone with an internet connection? If you don't provide (1)-(4), how much of a burden would it be to provide it? And if you're not willing to provide it, why not?

    Here's what PDC website says is included in the directories Thom cites:

    "Listings provide the complete title of the journal, name and address of the editor, telephone and fax numbers, e-mail address and web site, ISSN, purpose, sponsor, manuscript information for authors, information about book reviews published by the journal, frequency of publication, paid circulation, founding year, publisher, copyright holder, and subscription rates. There's no mention here of (1) – (3)."

    Reply
  37. Jeff Horty

    I have just within the past few months taken over as an editor for a
    journal (the newly-restructured Journal of Philosophical logic:
    http://www.springer.com/philosophy/logic/journal/10992), so this is all
    very interesting to me.

    I'll say first that, when we were setting things up, I did go through some
    blog threads on obligations of journals to authors, and tried to
    incorporate the good ideas I saw, so these discussions do have some actual
    effect.

    In particular, we've followed every single one of Doug Portmore's
    suggestions above — which I think I saw some time back in PEA Soup
    discussion about journal obligations. Right now, since the new editorial
    team has just taken over, what I've put in the author instructions is this
    blurb:

    >> As a result of recent changes in the editorial
    >> structure of the Journal, we do not currently
    >> have accurate information concerning the actual
    >> length of time from manuscript submission to
    >> initial decision, about acceptance rates, or
    >> about length of time from acceptance to
    >> publication. However, we will track this
    >> information and make it available on this web
    >> site once sufficient data have been assembled.

    But this will be replaced with actual numbers as soon as we have something
    meaningful, and then routinely updated.

    As to Doug's later comment about journal management software, the answer
    is Yes. The Editorial Manager system, which Springer uses, and I suspect
    the other main software system too (called Scholar One, I think), makes
    all the statistics you could ever want available in a second: number of
    mss received, time from recript to reviewer assignment, time from receipt
    to initial decision, acceptance rate, time from acceptance to publication,
    etc.

    So I can't think of any excuse for journals not to put all this stuff up
    on their web sites. This should become standard practice — there should
    be peer pressure for journals to do this. I think that will help a lot.
    Once all this information is out there, you can just let the marketplace
    work it's magic, or whatever. Journals that take forever to deal with
    manuscripts will soon find themselves with fewer submissions, and quality
    will drop.

    (An independent wiki is then only necessary if some journals seem to be
    giving misleading information.)

    One more thing about the better journal management software: it allows
    authors to track in real time exactly what stage your submission is at.
    So if you can check in after a few weeks and find, say, that your paper
    has not yet even been sent to a referee, well, at least you'll know that
    and you can decide what to do.

    Reply
  38. West Coast Public Univ. philosopher

    Right, and the other piece of the free-market solution is to provide incentives to the referees, as Christopher H. pointed out. Though this work is supposed to be 'service to the profession' (that's what you call things you want academics to do for free), clearly something is broken in the process when reviews take months.

    Monetary carrots are good, though I don't expect most journals can afford to offer anything substantial enough to be motivating, though even $20 creates a psychological obligation for the referee, but only after s/he has agreed to the task. Discounts on the publisher's books/journals may also work too.

    But perhaps greater than (token) money is prestige or recognition: What can journals do to bestow recognition on the referee, other than providing an opportunity to add a line-item on his or her CV? (Do referees even want to be publicly recognized, i.e., would it cause more journals to hit them up for reviews?) One idea is to have a new, ad hoc Editorial Board Associates list published with each journal in which the referees' papers appeared; that would be a more substantial CV item (in appearance, anyway).

    Editors, too, can be incentivized to turn the review cycle more quickly with performance goals/bonuses. This may help them to get more creative, e.g., create a Rapid Response Editorial Board that gets the first peek at papers and can make a preliminary decision (Worth reviewing/not worth reviewing) inside a week, and then the paper gets sent to some other referee. As previously pointed out, if authors know that such a process is in place, they may be more likely to submit to these journals first.

    Finally, still on the idea of free-market forces, the journals can commercialize a bit more to generate revenue in order to provide economic incentives such as the above. This basically means accept ads from publishers, universities, even companies as appropriate. For instance, if a journal knows it'll be publishing a paper on Nietzsche in their winter issue, then approach a couple publishers about advertising their new books on Nietzsche too.

    Welcome to the 21st century, philosophy journals.

    Reply
  39. Thom Brooks

    In reply:

    1. West Coast Public Univ. philosopher:
    1(a). I am afraid that I cannot agree with the view that authors should be able to submit to multiple journals and then let the journals fight amongst each other to accept papers before others. Beyond what I've already said above and will not repeat here, I would think it damaging for all of us if journals felt they had to rush to a decision before being able to take a proper look at a piece all so that they could beat a rival to a paper. Again, my best advice is that if you have a paper somewhere and they are taking longer than you would like, do not wait for a response: send a polite, brief email to the editor to ask when you might hear the journal's decision.

    1(b). Journals already often offer discounts of 10-20% on any purchases with their publisher. While I think these discounts (and discounts to the journal) important, I do not have any evidence that this has made referees more likely to review or, if they agree to review, review more quickly. This idea has been around a long time.

    1(c). Many journals already advertise in issues: this idea has been around a long time.

    2. Tom Hurka is absolutely right: editors need reasons, not simply verdicts.

    3. I accept Doug Portman's challenge! On his points:
    3(a) The Philosophy Documentation Center directories provide this information, as I have noted. I am looking at a recent edition now. It notes acceptance rates, waiting times for publication, what subjects in philosophy are published in that journal, how many papers are published each year, full contact information for the editor and publisher, etc. I update this every year. Granted, I accept that the information is spotty — some journals provide more information than others — but I do think it is the very best available. Anyone wanting information on *all* philosophy journals (in addition to all philosophy societies, publishers, and the philosophers themselves — that's right: it lists everyone with contact details) should check it out immediately. That said, there is no information on reviewer reports and not all journals comment much on their process beyond whether there is peer review, invite only, blind review or double-blind review.

    3(b). Yes, the Journal of Moral Philosophy (http://www.brill.nl/jmp) does provide (almost) all of (1)-(4)! Why do I say 'almost'? Each year we publish in the journal (a) statistics on the number of submissions received, (b) the average waiting time for review, (c) our acceptance rate over the past 12 months, and (d) a list of our referees that helped our board and myself with submissions. We have a new website with our publisher and it will be updated over the next month or two with several changes: much of (a)-(d) will be made available on it.

    Let me briefly comment on the other items, although beyond what I've already noted. I would be surprised if any reputable journal let any paper sit around too long prior to opening the envelope — I always try to acknowledge receipt on the day — and this may explain why most journals don't specify anything specific on this.

    In addition, most journals adopt the (old?) APA convention that papers reviewed in about a month or less do not require much, if any, comments (although they are provided where available). I would be surprised if others did not adopt it, too, as I had thought it was commonplace.

    Needless to say, I think if anyone is unclear about anything with a journal, they would be wise to contact the editor. My suspicion is that much of the mystery about journals and publishing in general disappear when one directly approaches editors. Too often there are too many that refrain for reasons beyond me.

    Reply
  40. Thom Brooks

    P.S. In addition to the PDC International Directory (as the JMP's editorial office is in Newcastle, UK) which libraries may lack and particular JMP issues which readers may lack access to, I do note acceptance rates, submission numbers, etc. and other news about the JMP for free on my publicly assessible blog: http://the-brooks-blog.blogspot.com/search/label/Journal%20of%20Moral%20Philosophy

    Reply
  41. Mike DePaul

    This comment is slightly off topic but I hope relevant.

    While I am certainly think it is a good thing to get comments to authors and strive hard to provide them with such, I frequently have the following experience. I send a paper with a request to referee to someone and hear that they have already refereed the paper for another journal, recommended rejection, but provided detailed comments. The paper I sent them either has no revisions or entirely superficial revisions. The prospective reviewer invariably declines to review because he or she is concerned about his or her opinion blocking the author from multiple journals.

    It is such a waste for a person to spend all the time and effort to write up comments only to have them disregarded. So perhaps it would be a good idea to give authors a no comment option at the time of submission. Why put referees to all the trouble if you are just going to ignore the comments in any case? Why slow down the decision process uselessly?

    Beyond the obvious point that the quality of a paper actual does influence the chances of its being accepted and revising in the light of detailed referee's comments will probably improve a paper, authors should also consider the fact that ours is a small profession overall. Areas of specialization are even smaller, with some being very small. And the number of people competent to referee on the specific topic of a paper even smaller. So the chance that a paper submitted in series to multiple journals ends up in the hands of the same referee is not very small. While the advice of people who "officially" referee a paper carries the day, you cannot really expect an editor not to be influenced when he or she hears from prospective referees who decline that they have already refereed the very same paper and passed a negative judgment.

    Reply
  42. John Alexander

    Why not simply embrace the internet age and publish papers on-line (which many people already do) as links on blogs that you are members of or on your website (again, which many do)? I suspect that by the time one gets a paper published the material is well known to others thru discussions online or in private and that the publication in journals really does not make it all that more accessible.

    Oh, I know that the profession will have to come up with another criterion to determine tenure, but that is not insurmountable.

    Reply
  43. West Coast Public Univ. philosopher

    Good point, John A. There are also popular magazines and sites who may be interested in some areas of philosophy, though to write for them, you'd have to 'dumb it down' and use less academic verbiage (which is not necessarily a bad thing).

    But not only is there a strong bias in academia toward papers published in hard-copy journals (as opposed to e-journals), there may be some reason to support the bias. For instance, if we were to post our papers on blogs or even some credible website that aggregates papers (but not quite an e-journal which still takes some time), then how does one know which papers/blogs among the flood are the respectable/sound ones that we should be paying attention to? The journal editors and referees have an important role to play in quality control; I'm not sure eliminating that filter solves the problem adequately.

    However, there is something to be said for open-source publishing. It's a much more democratic use of a paper and _could_ reach more readers/philosophers, if done right. So maybe a strategy is to submit papers to more e-journals, as a way to start migrating the journal industry online to gain the efficiencies that come with being online.

    Ranking/reputationwill still be important for e-journals, since any glorified blogger may be able to start one up. Does anyone have even a rough sense of how e-journals in philosophy might be ranked?

    If we had a credible ranking system for e-journals, that would address the major objections by tenure committees (who are still two centuries behind). Brian Leiter, do you want to take a crack at this? 😉

    Reply
  44. Keith DeRose

    The quick-but-no-comments plan looks promising to me. I'd like to see some journals give it a try. (Maybe some do, & I just don't know.) They could give authors a choice, as has been suggested here, or there could be journals which just operate that way as a matter of course.

    Tom Hurka's point (July 25, 2008 at 10:41 AM) is good, but can be overcome, I think.

    Referees needn't just give editors a simple thumbs up or thumbs down. A few quick sentences about what they think of the paper:

    "This is extremely good & important. I'd definitely advise in favor of publishing it"

    "This makes a good point, but doesn't advance the discussion very much beyond where ____ and ____ had already left it. I don't think it's important enough for what it does, so I suggest against publishing it."

    This is still much quicker & easier than the kind of comments I try to provide to authors now. The difference is like this: Have you ever team-taught a class, where both of the instructors read and grade all papers, but the papers are divided so that one of you is responsible for commenting on half of them, and the other of you for the other half? When you evaluate one of the papers not assigned to you for detailed comments, you just attach a grade, and put in a couple of sentences about what you think, not seeking to justify that verdict, nor trying to provide comments on how the paper could be improved. When I've done that, the papers I just evaluate and explain in a few sentences about what I think are *so* much easier to do. It doesn't even feel like work, compared with the much more excruciating experience of providing detailed comments. I fly right through all the papers that aren't my primary responsibility, and only bog down & start the hard, slow slog (& work that I find it very difficult to get myself to do) when I get to the papers that are "mine." I think it likely that many refs would get their jobs done *much* more quickly if they weren't providing detailed comments.

    The way most editors operate, they'd be ready to decide most cases on the basis of such quick communications — especially when both refs agree & both think that it's a clear call.

    Sometimes the reports will be such that further discussion will be needed before the editor can decide. Then the editor asks for more detailed reports. So refs can't be told "Just get us a few sentences & a verdict & you're done." But they can be told something along the lines of: usually that's all we'll need, though for some cases, we will have to ask for more detailed thoughts.

    And if a ref decides the paper is very good, and should be published, but only if certain changes are made, then, of course, they're going to provide detailed comments, in which this is all explained.

    And, of course, if a referee sees something that they feel they really need to comment on, there's no reason that should be forbidden, or that their comments shouldn't be passed on to the author. (In the team-teaching arrangement I describe above, I did occasionally find myself making some more detailed comments on papers that weren't my primary responsibility.)

    Potential contributors could not just be told: We [always /almost always] decide within P, where P is the quick time period chosen. But something like: Within P, we either have a decision for you, or inform you that your paper has entered a stage of evaluation that involves more detailed comments from the refs.

    Reply
  45. Keith DeRose

    For those who haven't already read this: Many referees and potential referees might benefit from reading John Perry's on-line essay, "Procrastination and Perfectionism," at:
    http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/light/perfectionism.php
    I read that essay right before a request to referee a paper appeared in my in-box, and got the job done immediately. But, of course, your mileage may vary.

    Reply
  46. Michael Weisberg

    Several commentators have made comparions between philosophy and scientific
    journals. While I agree with Thom and others that we should be wary of
    simple comparisons between philosophy and science journals, I think
    it is worth asking why many of them are run as well as they are —
    especially given that a deluge of graduate student generated papers
    are the norm (and my own view is that this development within
    philosophy is, on balance, positive).

    Some things that make science journals more efficient are that
    they:

    1. have considerable staff support and make pre-editorial decisions
    2. use submission management systems
    3. rely on action editors who maintain communication with reviewers
    and authors
    4. allow (and may even require) authors to propose reviewers
    5. have a well-known hierarchy

    I think aspects of these could have a place in philosophy journals.

    It is unlikely that very many philosophy journals could afford to
    increase their staff support, but at least one aspect of this support is worth
    considering. The top science journals (SCIENCE, NATURE, etc.) reject
    most papers at the staff level. A large staff of professional editors
    determines whether the research in a given manuscript is suitable for
    the journal independent of its quality. For SCIENCE and NATURE, this
    typically has to do with how broadly the research will appeal to the
    scientific community. Mistakes are definitely made, but it does make
    things go faster. And while philosophy journals probably can't adopt
    this kind of policy, they might consider giving editors a much freer
    hand in rejecting papers before they make it to referees. Some
    journals already do this and while it doesn't feel nice to get your
    paper summarily rejected, it is a lot better than waiting 4
    months to have it rejected.

    The virtues of a submission management system are pretty obvious. But
    I know in my own case, that the automatic reminder emails that
    Springer's system sends to referees are helpful and guilt me in to
    finishing my review. I think that if every journal had an automatic
    reminder system, this would be more effective than the
    monetary incentives discussed above.

    Most science journals assign every manuscript to an action editor —
    an associate editor or the EIC who keeps track of the whole
    process. Although your mileage may vary, my experience with this
    system is very positive. My action editors have always written an
    "action letter" which helps interpret referee reports and makes it
    clear what changes need to be made. On the referee side of the
    equation, the action editors I have worked with have always been very
    clear about exactly what they wanted my report to focus on. I suspect
    that this system also leads to more precise matching of referees with
    authors, as well as reducing the EIC's burden.

    Most science journals and granting agencies like the NSF ask authors
    to propose referees (and disclose conflicts of interest). Why don't
    more philosophy journals do this (and send to one chosen and one
    non-chosen referee)? It is also likely to lead to more precise
    matching and, since the referees may well have more interest in the
    ms, faster turn around times.

    Finally, I think the hierarchy of science journals is worth reflecting
    on, especially given the discussion above. It varies by field, but a
    lot of the hierarchy is about generality of the results' interest, not
    quality of the results. For example, if I am a peptide chemist, I
    might have the following hierarchy to think about when deciding where
    to send a paper: SCIENCE & NATURE > JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL
    SOCIETY > JOURNAL OF ORGANIC CHEMISTRY > TETRAHEDRON LETTERS >
    BIOORGANIC CHEMISTRY > BIOPOLYMERS > PEPTIDE SCIENCE …

    Any of these would be regarded as a good publication and the
    expectation is that a highly regarded chemist would only said a small
    fraction of her work to the most general journals.

    Obviously, we are not going to have anything like this structured
    hierarchy in philosophy … but it would be easier on the system if
    there wasn't pressure to, say, send lots of papers to the top 5-6
    journals and instead we, as a profession, adopted norms that spread
    out the submission and placement on the basis of how generally
    interesting the arguments were.

    I wish I knew how all of these things could be implemented … but it
    is worth talking about. In philosophy of science, I think things have
    already started moving in some of these directions.

    Reply
  47. Sam Rickless

    I like many of the suggestions that have been made to speed up the reviewing process. The "quick comments" option would take care of many papers that either don't have a chance or are slam dunks. Pushing journals (perhaps the APA could get involved) to publish detailed statistics on time-from-initial-submission-to-first-response would push editors to streamline procedures to compete for the best submissions. Giving editors the power to reject manuscripts before they are even reviewed is also a good idea. On the other hand, I don't like the idea of dual submissions. This will only increase the amount of potential (unpaid) work for already overworked reviewers. Among other things, it's worth remembering that the fact that graduate students are now submitting papers at a greater rate than was common in the past already makes it more difficult for editors to find (responsible) folks who are ready and willing to review.

    Here is a suggestion that I haven't seen, but might be worth considering. Call it the "shame-irresponsible-reviewers" strategy. The idea is that every journal would publish an annual list of reviewers whose reviews were more than, say, 2 weeks late. I think this would be very effective at cutting down the number of late reviews. No-one wants to be known as the kind of person whose irresponsible behavior might cost someone the chance at tenure or promotion. One of the main considerations favoring this system is that reviewers typically promise to review a submission within x weeks. If a reviewer breaks her or his promise, why shouldn't this fact be made public? Another consideration in favor of the system is that once the name of an irresponsible reviewer becomes public, other journal editors will think twice about sending a piece to him/her for review (thereby increasing the likelihood of a timely review).

    One argument against this proposal is that if reviewers knew that their names would be published on such a list if their reviews were late, then it would become even more difficult to find reviewers. But if the time for reviewing were reasonable (say, 6 weeks), then I don't think the number of folks willing to review would decline significantly. Another argument against the proposal is that potential reviewers might be tempted to sin once in order to avoid being asked to review in the future. But I doubt that this would happen. The reason is that philosophers care more about their good name than they do about reducing the number of reviewing requests they receive.

    Reply
  48. David Velleman

    Comparisons between philosophy journals and science journals are not appropriate, for many reasons.

    First, consider the subscription prices for science journals. They can run to $15,000 per year and more. These journals have resources far beyond what any philosophy journal can dream of.

    Second, most sciences have a very specific template for journal articles, tracking each discipline's standard procedures for experimental design and analysis. This standardization makes articles easier to read and referee.

    Third, science journals tend to have a much higher acceptance rate than most philosophy journals. Rates as low as 5% or 10% are very rare.

    Fourth, referees of scientific articles do not provide the same amount of feedback in their comments. Philosophical referees often provide 5 or more single-spaced pages of comments — far more than scientific authors typically receive.

    Maybe the APA should schedule a session that would bring together editors from a range of journals, to trade ideas about how to improve the peer-review process. (Has such a session been held in the past?)

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  49. Richard Brown

    I just wanted to second the comment about the length of papers. I once submitted a paper to Phil Review and, after a year and a half, I got back a rejection and a reviewer's comment (paraphrasing): "this paper is well written and generally right but it is too short (~4000 words). It is suitable for a journal that accepts shorter pieces"…Sadly I never found such a journal…Why is there this prediliction for longer pieces? If you can make the point, and make it well, in a few thousand words, isn't that a good thing?

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  50. Sandy Goldberg

    While we are seconding things, I want to second David Velleman's suggestion that an APA session be dedicated to bringing together editors from philosophy journals to trade best practices regarding the peer review process. I don't know whether such a session has been done before, but it is a great idea. (Given that this is the second time in not-too-long that a query regarding this process has been posted here on Brian's blog — generating a lively discussion both times — this seems to suggest that there is a sufficient amount of dissatisfaction with how things stand presently.)

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