In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:
What is it permissible to do in light of an accepted paper taking very long to actually reach print?
I have a paper, that was accepted in April last year, but is still "Awaiting Production Checklist". I haven't heard from the journal since it was accepted, and looking through the journal website, it seems like lots of paper take a long time from acceptance to being published online even though they have an online first publication model. (As a side note, there seems to be no pattern as to when accepted papers are published – some accepted more recently than mine have been published, others accepted even longer ago have only just been published – what is going on here?)
My problem is that I want this paper published (not just accepted) so that others might read it, and because I think the arguments could be quite important for the field. I'm also early career, and it would help with my name recognition – I'm also somewhat worried someone might scoop me even though the paper has been accepted.
I have the paper on my website, but I would like it to show up on philpapers and google scholar, so that people can find it. Is there a way of doing this? Alternatively, is it acceptable to upload the paper as a pre-print somewhere (i.e. SSRN) even though the paper has been accepted?
Good questions. I know a lot of people upload preprints to PhilPapers, and I try to do this whenever possible–but I also know that some publishing contracts allow this and others don't. Some contracts only allow one to post preprints on a personal website, for example, others allow the posting of preprints on not-for-profit archives but not for-profit sites (like academia.edu), etc. So, I guess I'd recommend reading one's publishing contract as a first-step.
On the other hand, I've heard some people say that they just ignore publishing contracts, on the grounds that they don't feel any duty to meet contractual obligations with large for-profit publishing companies and are unlikely to get in any trouble for it. Personally, I tend to think that if I sign an agreement, I should uphold it–but I will admit that it is frustrating, as it can probably prevent one's papers from being as widely read as they might if one were to post preprints.
Anyway, I'm curious to hear what other people think. Any thoughts/tips for the OP?
Leave a Reply