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

Starting an undergraduate journal of philosophy?

Brian Leiter

A student writes:

I am an undergraduate student majoring in philosophy at St. Mary's College of Maryland. I'm interested in creating an undergraduate philosophy journal but don't know how to proceed. One of my professors suggested that I email you to ask if you would post my question on your blog, asking for advice from you and your readers. And, in addition to how to get started, I'm wondering what your readers believe are the pros and cons to publishing online rather than in print.  Any insight would be much appreciated.

Thoughts from students or faculty with pertinent experience and advice?

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8 responses to “Starting an undergraduate journal of philosophy?”

  1. Tom Morgan

    The British Undergraduate Philosophy Society have a journal – http://www.bups.org/about-bjup/

    I believe when the journal first launched there were print copies but it seems they have gone purely online. I'd recommend asking them for advice – when I was a member and met many of the organisers at a BUPS conference a few years ago they were very friendly.

    Reply
  2. Michael Lyons

    I am actually the current president of BUPS, and co-manage our journal. One of our editors noticed the post on here and informed me about it. As it happens, we are now having another go at running print copies of our journal. I'd be more than happy to share the experiences that we've had with this, as well as to discuss in more detail how we run, in order to give you some ideas about how to set up a journal of your own. If you're interested, feel free to email me at michael.lyons@bups.org .

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  3. B

    I am concerned that young students misunderstand the value of publishing in an undergraduate philosophy journal. Such a publication will count for nothing with respect to applying to graduate schools. I was an undergraduate at a very well regarded university, and one of my undergraduate peers published a paper in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. This was NOT typical, and this student was very atypical as well. This student was being groomed, and it did pay off well. I now work at a college that is principally concerned with undergraduate education. I discourage students from wasting their time with such things. Time is better spent reading difficult philosophy, attending conferences and philosophy talks, and discussing philosophy with your professors. If a student happens to write a paper that outstanding, I recommend that she send it to a refereed philosophy conference.

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  4. John Schwenkler

    The undergraduates at my university edit a journal that is printed out each year and distributed on campus. It is a good way to showcase student scholarship and reward students for their excellent work, and those students who are responsible for refereeing submissions and then putting together the finished product tend to find the work rewarding. (It can be a lot of hard work for faculty, though!) However, I doubt our students would get as much out of it if they didn't print the journal in hard copy, since this is a more substantial reminder of their work, and it is easier to showcase their work by distributing the journal in hallways and dining halls than it would be to promote something that was purely online.

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  5. anon_undergraduate

    Undergraduate here who has the same sympathies of B, but nevertheless was Editor-in-Chief for my department's journal. While I don't imagine my activities will mean anything for graduate school, it was a good experience to have. I only didn't continue because the most difficult part of it all was gathering submissions. Depending on the students, an undergraduate journal can be a nice way to encourage undergraduates to work on philosophy outside of strictly class-based requirements. I see this activity similar to how at some departments graduate students will hold regular convocations, listen to a student present something that they've been working on, and ask questions and offer criticisms.

    As for the journal, I essentially had to start from scratch, as though there had been previous issues of the journal, there was no remaining infrastructure or staff.

    My first task was to recruit an editorial team from those I knew and sending out department emails. They didn't need to be philosophy majors, but just have formal philosophy experience.

    Then we sought out submissions from undergraduates at our university (advertised through departmental emails, papers taped on doors, and professors inviting kids to submit) as well from without. I put a Call for Papers on the academicphilosophy sub-reddit, and was able to tell by the internet traffic that some departments who came across the Call for Papers had forwarded the notice along to all their students. We got a lot of extra-departmental hits from this advertisement source.

    Then, all of us editors got together, examined papers, and made decisions.

    Then I produced a final journal product with cover and all using LaTeX, produced a .PDF, and put out free digital and print copies. The latter was paid for by using departmental funds. The local printers offered a large discount to university sponsored printings which made this cost effective. A print edition is far more professional and substantial. I can't imagine offering only digital copies.

    As far as journal design goes, you can search online and look at all the different undergraduate journals out there to see how they put it all together.

    If you want to know anything in more detail, feel free to email me at: philjournalthrowaway1277@gmail.com

    Reply
  6. David Beard

    One of the main values of the undergrad journal s the experience it brings staff — collaboration, editing, layout and design, etc. –imagine an exercise that enhances one's philosophy chops and one's employable skill set.

    Reply
  7. Michael Lyons

    Though I can very much understand the concern that B raises, I am unsure as to whether writing for undergraduate Philosophy journals is necessarily a waste of time. Just as an example, I believe two of the authors published in the previous issue of our journal, one of whom also presented their paper at our last conference, have since graduated, and are now studying on the BPhil course at Oxford. Whilst I am sure that the publication of their work did not contribute directly to their gaining of places at Oxford, since they would have received their offers before sending their submissions to us, I feel that this is at least an indication that journals and conferences like ours attract outstanding philosophy students, who demonstrate that there are undergraduates who are capable of making decent contributions to contemporary debates within Philosophy and the history thereof.

    Whilst I cannot speak for every Philosophy undergraduate journal, I know that ours is primarily reviewed by very kind academics in the UK, who volunteer their time to go through submissions that they have expertise in. So we on the editorial team only select papers for publication that have been judged to be both outstanding and worthy of publication by an academic with the relevant expertise. As such, I believe it's reasonable to claim that working towards getting published in undergraduate journals (at the very least ones that are refereed by academics) is a brilliant way in which to foster and demonstrate the talents of philosophy students, outside of the work that they do towards their degrees. So if graduate schools are looking for the most talented philosophy students, and writing for philosophy journals can help foster and demonstrate the talents of philosophy students, getting published in an undergraduate journal ought to help students with their graduate school applications. Even if they do end up counting for nothing with respect to applications directly, I would argue that fostering one's philosophical talents couldn't possibly be a waste of time, whether you wish to work as an academic philosopher or not. After all, writing outstanding work need not exclude reading difficult philosophy, attending conferences and philosophy talks, and discussing philosophy with professors.

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  8. P. Quinn White

    I serve on the editorial staff of my school's undergraduate philosophy journal, and notwithstanding B's comments, I would argue that the entire process of putting together a journal is an incredibly valuable one for all involved. That one was "published" in such a journal may not mean anything in and of itself to graduate programs, but that one had the opportunity to engage with one's peers and discuss one's work and, for the editors, to go about reading and evaluating work (a process substantively different from reading work you already know to be of very high quality), obviously helps us develop the skills necessary to function well in a community of scholars. That can have important effects on the quality of the work produced as an undergrad; I now have a network of peers on whom I know I can call to test out my ideas and, as the case in any discipline, I've (I hope!) become a better thinker by working things out in the context of critiquing my peers' ideas and defending and revising my own. Furthermore, I've begun to learn how best to have the sorts of peer-to-peer interactions that graduate students describe as being so crucial to their experience. A journal certainly shouldn't distract from one's coursework, which matters far more, but there is definitely time as an undergrad to participate in such constructive peer-to-peer communities without taking away valuable time from what matters.

    Two bits of advice for the student: consider making a special freshmen category for submissions; having freshmen in their own category gives them a real shot at making it in and can get them excited and involved.

    Secondly and more importantly, have regular dinners or other gatherings as a group. This is key to developing and promoting the benefits of being a part of a peer community.

    Lastly, I imagine that undergrad journals all over the place would be happy to offer advice if you emailed their editors in chief.

    Good luck!

    Reply

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