The Philosophers' Cocoon

A reader writes in:

I really appreciated the recent post about how to select a journal for submitting one's work.  A lot of the comments concerned the differences in experience with "top" vs "mid-tiered" journals.  I am aware of a few obvious examples (Mind, J Phil) of "top" journals.  But I really don't have a sense of how to identify whether journals are top, tier-2, mid-tier, bad, etc.  Is there a way to tell?  Is there a ranking somewhere?

Interesting question. I'm not a big fan of journal rankings myself, and am not sure how others think about what constitutes one tier rather than another. However, for my part, to the extent that I do pay attention to rankings and classify journals in one 'tier' rather than another, here (very roughly) is how I do it. When it comes to how philosophers rank journals, there are polls like the ones Leiter carries out from time to time on generalist journals and journals in moral and political philosophy. Then there are other rankings you can find through a simple Google search, such as these ones. Next, as a rule of thumb (just judging on how I expect others in the profession think about these things), I'm inclined to categorize 'top-5' journals as tippy-top A+ journals (first tier), journals ranked 6-10 'A/A-' journals (bottom of first tier), journals 11-20 something like 'A-/B+/B' journals the further you go down the list. Then, again judging by how (some) others in the profession seem to treat them, journals outside of the top-2o are something like 'third tier' or 'lower tier' journals.

Is this about right, at least in terms of how people in the profession tend to think? I'm curious to hear. However, things don't quite end there. In addition to how people in philosophy think about various journals, there are quite a lot of interdisciplinary journals that publish work in philosophy that–as these quantiative Scimago rankings indicate–which actually have significantly higher citation rates and impact factors than journals highly ranked by philosophers.

In other words, there are multiple ways one may 'rank' journals, ranging from reputational surveys (such as the Leiter ones) to quantitative (impact-based measures). Whether one type of ranking is more relevant than another–in terms of evaluating what 'tier' one of your publications is in–really depends, I think, on your values and academic situation. For example, in some jobs (R1 jobs at elite institutions), my understanding is that the reputation of your work is what matters most–whether you are considered a 'leader' in your field. On the other hand, at other universities it may matter more whether your work makes an impact (that is, how much you are cited), in which case it may behoove you to focus on journal impact factors. Finally, if you are at a university where people just don't care that much about things like rankings (and my experience is that there are plenty of universities like this), then you may simply want to publish your work in whatever venues (including interdisciplinary ones) where they are the most likely to get read and engaged with by a larger audience.

Long story short, I don't think there's a single measure of journal 'tiers'. Rather, there are multiple measures (reputation in philosophy, reputation outside of philosophy, quantitative impact factors) of journal rankings and tiers that can have differing levels of relevance depending on your academic situation and values.

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?