Publishing as a Graduate Student

A confession. I was not successful at publishing as a graduate student. Honestly, I had no idea what I should be doing. So, here is everything I wish I had known then.

Writing with an eye to publishing

Intellectual narcissism: get over it!

Motivate your argument. Do not assume that everyone thinks your work is as fascinating as you do. Ask yourself: “Why should political scientists (or political theorists) who work on other questions care about my argument?”
Participate in the scholarly conversation. Virtually any scholarly topic has been addressed by others, either directly or indirectly. Situate yourself within this scholarly conversation. (See “Rules of Thumb” 1-4 below).

You’re not alone.

Share your paper. Share your paper with others—graduate student colleagues, faculty mentors, conference and workshop audiences. Then, revise in response to feedback. (See “Rule of Thumb” 5 below).
Models. Find examples of papers in your area. What works about them? How are they framed? How is the argument structured? How do they handle objections?

Scouting and targeting

Scouting. Determine which journals might be good “fits” for your paper. Where do the authors you’re engaging with publish? What advice do your faculty mentors have?
Targeting. Choose which journal among the good “fits” to target first. (Absent major constraints, target the best journal first). Then, revise your paper again in response to the journal’s formatting, style guidelines, and word limits.

Journal publishing: processes and outcomes

Journal review processes differ. The advice below is general and may not apply in every case.

Reject

Deep breath. Statistically, this is the most common outcome. You’re not alone. (See Arash Abizadeh’s CV of Journal Article Rejections. What a public service!).
Review. Review any feedback from the editor and/or reviewers (if it went out for review).
Consult. Reach out to faculty mentors, committee members, and trusted friends. See what they think about the feedback you received and the changes you ought to make.
Revise. Make changes in response to feedback. (See “Rule of Thumb” 5 below).
Submit. Send the paper to another journal.

Reject and resubmit

Review. Review the reviewers’ reports and the editor’s letter.
Strategize. Determine whether the major changes required are ones that you want to make (especially knowing that the paper would be considered as a new submission and might go to different reviewers) or whether you think it is better to submit the paper to another journal. Faculty mentors and friends can help with this strategizing.
If you decide to revise, then…
Revise. Make changes in response to reviewer feedback, along with any changes you want to make. (See “Rule of Thumb” 5 below).
Revision memo. Write a revision memo or letter to the editor that outlines the changes you’ve made and/or offers good reasons for resisting suggested changes.
Resubmit.

Revise and resubmit with major revisions

Review. Review the reviewers’ reports and the editor’s letter.
Strategize. Determine whether the major changes required are ones that you want to make or whether you think it is better to submit the paper to another journal. Faculty mentors and friends can help with this strategizing.
Revise. Make changes in response to reviewer feedback, along with any changes you want to make. (See “Rule of Thumb” 5 below).
Revision memo. Write a revision memo that outlines the changes you’ve made and/or offers good reasons for resisting suggested changes.
Resubmit.

Revise and resubmit with minor revisions

Review. Review the reviewers’ reports and the editor’s letter.
Revise. Make changes in response to reviewer feedback, along with any changes you want to make. (See “Rule of Thumb” 5 below).
Revision memo. Write a revision memo that outlines the changes you’ve made and/or offers good reasons for resisting suggested changes.
Resubmit.

Conditional acceptance

Celebrate! This is rare.
Revise. Make changes in response to reviewer feedback, along with any changes you want to make. (See “Rule of Thumb” 5 below).
Revision memo. Write a revision memo that outlines the changes you’ve made and/or offers good reasons for resisting suggested changes.
Resubmit.

Unconditional acceptance

Celebrate! This is extremely rare.
Revise. Make any changes that are important to you. (See “Rule of Thumb” 5 below).
Revision memo. Write a revision memo that outlines the changes you’ve made.
Resubmit.

Rules of Thumb

Start with 10 articles. Getting on top of the secondary literature can seem daunting. Sometimes, it seems so daunting that one is reluctant to begin. A good strategy is to pick 10 articles in your area. Read them all. Pay attention to how they discuss the literature. Patterns will begin to emerge. The camps or categories will start to become clear. Once you have a way to group positions, the secondary literature becomes far less daunting.
Practice interpretive charity. Good scholarly work is hard. It is reasonable to assume that the people who produce work and get it published are not dumb. So, if you are dealing with a position in the literature that you think is misguided, the best question to ask is: “Why would a smart person come to this conclusion?” Starting with this question will encourage you to read other arguments charitably. It will also help you to more accurately identify and diagnose where their argument goes wrong. Pointing out the flaws in a position can be useful. Diagnosing the reasons for those missteps can be a massive public service.
Avoid unnecessary fights. Academic writing often involves taking sides. Sometimes, arguments that you disagree with are so irritating that you may be tempted to provide an exhaustive discussion of their failings. This is not generally a good strategy. Only pick the fights that are necessary for your argument to go through. Intellectually, this keeps your paper focused. Strategically, it gives potential reviewers (who might be defenders of the very positions you’re criticizing) fewer grounds for rejecting the paper.
Use the literature to set a high standard for your argument. Use your review of the existing literature to set the standard that your argument is going to have to meet. Here’s an abstract example. “There are two broad positions on this question. Position A explains x, but does not explain y. Position B explains x and y, but does not explain z.” This means that your argument should have all the advantages of the existing positions (i.e., it should explain x and y), but also improve on them (i.e., it should also explain z).
Read your paper strategically. Identify the core of your argument—the moves that are essential to getting the reader to your conclusion. These are generally your main premises. What is left is peripheral. These may be examples, elaborations, or extensions. As a general rule, you should defend the core of your argument, but be willing to concede at the periphery. Failure to defend the core conveys the impression that you are not committed to your argument. Failure to concede at the periphery conveys the impression that you are intellectually inflexible.

Resources

Abizadeh, Arash. 2022. CV of Journal Article Rejections. Available: https://abizadeh.wixsite.com/arash/post-1/cv-of-journal-article-rejections

Belcher, Wendy Laura. 2019. Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks, 2nd edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Davis, Murray S. 1971. “That’s Interesting! Towards a Phenomenology of Sociology and a Sociology of Phenomenology.” Philosophy of Social Sciences 1, no. 4: 309-344.