In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:
I have a question about preempting objections in journal-length papers. It seems to me that, given the constraints of length, you can’t always argue for every premise that supports your central thesis in detail. Sometimes, you have to take certain premises for granted or only offer a brief justification for why you endorse them, in order to keep the paper concise. However, since most philosophical theses are controversial to some extent, it’s not uncommon for me to receive referee reports that say something like, "The argument relies on Thesis A, but there are obvious objections to Thesis A that should be addressed."
In response, I’ve tried preemptively addressing possible objections at the start of my papers, but then I often get feedback like, "The introduction is too long and makes the paper feel unfocused."
It seems that the root of the issue is that some referees agree with the basic premise of my paper, while others do not. So, I’m wondering: when, and to what extent, should I preemptively address possible objections to my paper’s central premise? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Good query. I haven't had this experience too often, but basically like the OP I sometimes find out in the peer-review process which objections probably need to be preempted, and I usually try to address those. Another thing to possibly do is to simply cite others who have defended Thesis A in the past, if this has been done, and then frame the argument as a big conditional, "If A, B, C, etc., then D" (which is sort of what they are anyway). A third thing I've learned to do is to not preempt objections in the paper's introduction, but instead later in the main body of the paper.
Do other readers have any other helpful tips?
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