Dramatic Increase in Philosophy Journal Submissions

This is a great discussion over at Theoria (

HERE) much of which revolves around the increase of submissions to journals. It addresses the movement of philosophy regarding publishing in the last 15 years. One of the main points is that submissions have increased way above the increase in philosophers.  What was suggested by one contributor in the article is that the job market has become more competitive and it is now almost essential to have a peer reviewed journal publish your work in order to secure a job out of graduate school. 

"Part of what is happening, I'm sure, is something that has not been mentioned yet, namely the expectations on graduate students. Sven Ove mentioned the threshold between no publications and some publications in refereed journals. For graduate students the default assumption had been that there would be none, but now it is very difficult to get a job in the US without having a publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Consequently, there is huge pressure towards submission coming from graduate students wanting to get jobs"

As part of the conference commemorating Theoria's 75th anniversary, a round table discussion on philosophy publishing was held in Bergendal, Sollentuna, Sweden, on 1 October 2010. 

 In order to have a framework for this discussion, I asked my fellow panellists to answer some questions beforehand. They have given me their estimates of what has happened in the field of philosophy during the last fifteen years. The averages are as follows:

Number of philosophers: + 50 percent

Number of submissions: + 100 percent

Number of publications: + 50 percent

Number of referees: + 40 percent

The number of submissions to journals has increased most. Publications have also
increased, mainly because of new journals rather than old journals having become larger. But the number of referees had the smallest increase. These estimates suggest that each individual seeks to publish more and more. Does this mean that we will have more short snippets and fewer deep and fundamental contributions? And does the slower increase in the number of referees mean that we will have more superficial reviews, perhaps only checking that the work is performed in the usual way, thus disadvantaging more unconventional material? And how would you deal with a situation that is changing in this way? This is what I want my fellow panelists to reflect on....

"Part of what is happening, I'm sure, is something that has not been mentioned yet, namely the expectations on graduate students. Sven Ove mentioned the threshold between no publications and some publications in refereed journals. For graduate students the default assumption had been that there would be none, but now it is very difficult to get a job in the US without having a publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Consequently, there is huge pressure towards submission coming from graduate students wanting to get jobs"

See full article HERE

--

-------------------

Join PhilosoraptErs on Twitter or Facebook to get your daily dose of professional preparation!

Help me keep your fellow philosophers informed!

You can email Suggestions, Questions, and Links to PhilosraptErs@gmail.com

Join me on Twitter or Facebook for updates. Please email suggestions, links and questions to PhilosoraptErs@gmail.com