A distinctly unoriginal take on the pathologies of overvaluing academic “novelty.”
Get off my lawn! Are journal demands for “novelty” creating a culture of low-level academic dishonesty?
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journals
All Journals Can, and Should, Provide Decision Letters and Reviewer Reports to Referees
Note: This is the third post in an occasional series in which I talk about lessons learned (or related stuff) from my time editing International Studies Quarterly. My prior posts focused on "best...
What Makes a Good Book Review: Some Editorial Advice
The following is a guest post by Andrew Owsiak, Associate Professor at the University of Georgia and Book Editor for International Studies Review. The race to push scholarly research into the world...
Pitching Your Article?
Dan Nexon has instituted a new Ask the Editors feature on his editor's blog on the newly revamped ISQ website. If you haven't seen it yet, PTJ has done a great job developing the site and Dan hasn't...
More journals Posts
What are the “Big Issues” of International Politics, and How Should Journals Address Them?
A common complaint among international-relations scholars is that our journals don't sufficiently engage with big, new, and pressing issues of world politics. Those that do, on the other hand, often get criticized for a lack of rigor. I've made this complaint before, in the context of the financial crisis, and Kate Weaver offered some thoughts about "what's wrong" with IPE. But the problem extends far beyond the financial crisis and IPE. Standard explanations for this state of affairs include: the length of the publication cycle: it can take years to get from paper, to submission, to making...
Talking Academic Journals: Online Fora
At the end of May I posted the Georgetown-anchored bid for International Studies Quarterly that provides a roadmap for what we intend to do with the journal. I also briefly discussed the online model we're developing for International Studies Quarterly Online, an effort under the capable supervision of PTJ. And yes, we might need a better name for it. Among the online-only content that expect to include on the website are symposia and fora. We envision this content as less formal and shorter than what you would normally expect in International Studies Review (ISR) or International Studies...
Measuring Journal (and Scholarly) Outcomes
Another day, another piece chronicling problems with the metrics scholars use to assess quality. Colin Wight sends George Lozano's "The Demise of the Impact Factor": Using a huge dataset of over 29 million papers and 800 million citations, we showed that from 1902 to 1990 the relationship between IF and paper citations had been getting stronger, but as predicted, since 1991 the opposite is true: the variance of papers’ citation rates around their respective journals’ IF [impact factor]  has been steadily increasing. Currently, the strength of the relationship between IF and paper citation...
New Journal: Political Science Research and Methods
Cambridge University Press has un-gated the inaugural issue of Political Science Research and Methods, edited by Cameron G. Thies and Vera E. Troeger. Thies and Troeger have implemented a textbook journal launch, complete with major names in the field and strong articles.Go take a look.
Talking Journals: ISQ on the Web
Alright folks, I don't really have much to say here. Instead, I'll provide a link (PDF) to a copy of the bid we submitted nearly a year ago. Be warned that it includes some egregious typos and other fun* stuff. Why do I think this will be of interest? For some time, I've been making noises about the future of journals in terms of how they interact with Web 2.0 technologies. There seem to be a number of different, if related, models. Arrange a distribution deal with a prominent blog. This is what The Monkey Cage has done with Cambridge University Press. Authors write a short blog post...
Talking Academic Journals: Publishing the “Best Work”
Note: this is the second in a series of posts opening up issues relating to journal process for general discussion by the international-studies community. All journals commit to publishing "the best work" that they receive within their remit. All journals aspire to publish "the best work," period, within their specialization. This raises special challenges for a journal such as the International Studies Quarterly, which constitutes the "flagship" publication of the International Studies Association (ISA). The ISA is incredibly diverse. It includes members from all over the world--nearly half...
Talking Academic Journals: Collecting Data
Note: this is the first in what I hope will be a series of posts opening up issues relating to journal process for general discussion by the international-studies community. Although many readers already know the relevant information, let me preface this post with some context. I am the incoming lead editor of International Studies Quarterly (ISQ), which is one of the journals in the International Studies Association family of publications. We are planning, with PTJ leading the effort, some interesting steps with respect to online content, social media, and e-journal integration--but those...
Tracking and Political-Science Journal Accountability
(click on the image to enlarge) I'm usually cautious about linking to anything in the PSJR/PSR family of sites, but this strikes me as pretty interesting: a wiki devoted to tracking political-science journals. Contributors note the journal, the turnaround time, and information about what happened to the article. Despite the promulgation of end-of-year journal reports, the submission-to-review-to-outcome process remains a mystery to many. In general, more information is a good thing -- especially considering how much influence peer-reviewed publications have on the allocation of status,...