A reader writes in:
Some years back you wrote a post in which you responded to Thom Brooks' publishing advice for graduate students. Here's what you said about publishing replies:
After discussing book reviews, Brooks talks about "replies" — 2,000-word or so responses to articles/arguments published elsewhere. I entirely agree with Brooks on the value of replies. My first two publications were replies, and they were a valuable experience in a number of ways. First, replies don't take much time to write. They don't take months of hard work to put together. All you have to do is find a problem with an argument someone has published, write up your counter-argument, and send it off. Second, and this is just my impression (but also Brooks' as well), peer-review standards are probably not quite as high with replies as with full-length articles (either that, or its just the case that good replies are easier to write!). Third, replies are a great way to gain confidence– chances are that if you write some, you'll land one as a publication sooner or later. Finally, they are a great opportunity to get a feel for what reviewers and editors are looking for — the thing that, in my experience, is the most important thing to get in order to publish effectively (more on this momentarily). Basically, the only down-side of replies is that journals typically only accept replies to their own articles. Although a few journals that accept replies to articles in other journals, most do not — so, if you send your reply to the journal that published the original piece and it doesn't get accepted, you may be out of luck. Still, I don't think this should deter you — for again, replies don't take much time, and if you churn a bunch out, chances are something will land!
Recently, I've been thinking about writing a reply, but I've had some mixed advice from others when I bring this up. One common thing I have heard is that sometimes it is better to just send off a paper that for all intents and purposes is a reply, but isn't pitched as one, as in the phrase, "A reply to Y" does not appear in the title. I thought this advice was pretty good, since we've all read papers that are basically just responding to one article or one person's view, and so essentially are replies, but are not explicitly pitched that way. But I also was thinking that, in my case, a reply might be the way to go, since I really do just want to respond to one paper in particular.
Now the strategy I thought I'd take in this particular reply would be to, obviously, respond to the author by drawing on some of my own area of research, which happens to concern figures who do not figure prominently in the author's paper, but who to my mind have views that are obviously relevant to the debate in question, views that serve as legit rebuttals to the points they are trying to make. Now is this the sort of thing that happens in a reply, or am I already drifting towards regular old article territory if that is the aim of my paper?
So I guess you can take my email as an invitation to reconsider (or to not reconsider) some of your thoughts on the value of reply papers. And if you think my message is too specific to go to the blog, well then it'd be helpful for me if you might just share some of your thoughts privately.
Good query. I'm curious to hear what others think–but here are a few quick thoughts of my own.
I've tried the strategy this reader mentions: pitching what is essentially a reply paper not as a reply, but instead as a free-standing article. In theory, this sounds like a good idea. Yet, every time I've tried it, it hasn't worked. Each time, the editor at the journal I submitted to says the same thing: "We don't accept replies to papers in other journals", adding that the paper in question would have to be much more freestanding (i.e. not directed primarily at one author) to be considered at the journal. In response, I usually either abandon the paper or try to develop it into a more freestanding piece. However, I've found that turning something into a freestanding piece typically requires making the paper far longer and more involved than a reply paper–sort of defeating the point of writing a reply in the first place (namely, their being short and quick to put together).
In other words, while this reader's strategy sounds good, I've had absolutely no luck with it–which is why, although I started out my publishing career with a couple of replies (which I do think is a good way to get one's foot in the door), I don't generally write replies anymore. But maybe my experience is idiosyncratic. As the reader notes, one does seem to come across pieces sometimes that are essentially replies but not packaged that way.
Have any other readers had any success with the reader's proposed strategy?
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