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Deciding between generalist or specialist journals?

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I wonder how does one distinguish if a paper I wrote should be submitted to a generalist or a specialist journal? Is it just that once you get rejected from the top 10 generalist journals, you start sending your paper to specialist journals in your area? Or, perhaps, there is something about the content itself that makes the difference. Any advice?

I myself don't have any settled plan. Sometimes I submit to generalist journals, other times to specialist ones. But I'd be curious to hear from others.

What do readers do, and why?

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9 responses to “Deciding between generalist or specialist journals?”

  1. amper

    It depends on what your goal is in publishing. If it’s about getting a job, then you should probably look partly to maximise prestige among people outside your area. In some subfields their top specialist journals are well known to and highly respected by the broader profession, in other subfields less so.

    Reply
  2. Evan

    A rule or thumb I use is that I only consider general journals if the topic seems like it would be interesting to a wider audience. I think editors of general journals use this sort of criterion and will reject it if they think it’s too specialized. After deciding that, yes, it would be interesting to a wider audience, the usual criteria apply: word count, prestige, time to decision, etc. I sometimes have gone back and forth from general to specialist and then back to general, depending on the comments and my patience to have it accepted somewhere.

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  3. Michel

    What does your CV need? If that’s not a consideration, who would you like to read the paper? (More specialists will read it in the specialist journal; a broader swathe of philosophers will read it in the generalist journal.) How easy/hard is it to justify the topic as worthwhile? If it’s niche or unusual, it will be easier to publish in a specialist venue. Are you hoping for prize nominations (if so, which)? Are the generalist journals you’re hoping for typically friendly to the paper’s subfield, or do they only publish in it once a decade?
    It all depends on what you’re hoping to do!

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  4. here is what I do

    I work in philosophy of science. My preference is to place my best work in Philosophy of Science. But good alternative specialist venues include: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Synthese, and Erkkentnis. Papers in those journals get read and cited. I have published in Nous in the past. The review time and the time to publication was very long. I tend not to publish in general philosophy journals these days, unless you count Synthese and Erkenntnis. But I have published in APQ in the past. The key is to ensure that you reach your readership. I also publish in other fields – there I tend to aim pretty high. Again, I want my work to be read and cited. I am at the stage where I do not need just more publications.

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  5. Bill V.

    I would say you should publish in a journal where a conversation about your topic is active. That should help get your work more notice. Journal “fit” also helps increase the chance a paper will be accepted, other things being equal.
    As a field, we should stop obsessing about rankings. It is very unphilosophical. The real differences between work published in the top 10 and the top 30 or even top 50 journals is tiny, and probably mostly an illusion. The papers that nearly get accepted at a journal that only publishes 5% or 10% of what it receives are very good papers, even though they never appear in that “top” journal. Given the silly acceptance rates, there is a LOT of luck involved in who gets published in those journals vs. who does not, and it is a mistake to amplify that luck into a quality signal (especially an inverse quality signal, where a paper not published in one of those journals is automatically judged inferior).
    Practically, things like chance of acceptance and time to publication might be more important considerations, depending on one’s circumstances.
    There are very few jobs where a publication in a top generalist journal would make you a successful applicant while the same paper published in a good specialist journal would not. Likewise for tenure cases. I would argue that you don’t want to work at a place that makes judgements on that kind of basis anyway.

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  6. Specialist

    @Evan, do you really feel like specialty articles in generalist journals get read by a wide audience? I received the impression that people don’t just browse through generalist journals at all, so someone would only find the article if they’re already looking for that topic on Philpapers or something

    Reply
  7. Philosopher of Science

    In philosophy of science, there are two leading journals: the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, and Philosophy of Science. My impression is that publishing in these journals is treated pretty much equivalently to publishing in the “big 5” generalist journals. They also tend to have significantly faster turnaround times. To this end, I tend to submit work in philosophy of science (especially work which has a lot of technical content / engages closely with empirical results) to these journals rather than generalist journals.

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  8. Evan

    @Specialist, I agree with you that not many people browse generalist journals, although there are still a few who do browse the supposedly top ones. I was thinking that if someone outside your speciality comes across the paper for whatever reason, they’d be more likely to take a look if it’s in PPR rather than Philosophy of Science, say. It can also be an indicator that you work on topics that aren’t so niche and arcane that other colleagues might be interested in talking about your work! But these are small concerns. I work in Ancient and if I never publish in the big 5 (I haven’t to this point) I won’t be too disappointed.

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  9. Specialist

    I see, thanks Evan!

    Reply

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