The Philosophers' Cocoon

A safe and supportive forum for philosophers.

Owned & Moderated by Marcus Arvan (University of Tampa)

Contact: marvan@ut.edu

Blog mission & moderation policy

IMPORTANT NOTE on how to ensure anonymity in commenting
Job-Market Reporting Thread (2025-26)
Job-Market Discussion Thread (2025-26)

recent posts

about

Editorial board votes (& paper lengths)

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

I had an R&R at a very selective journal. My revisions were accepted by the reviewers but the editor mentioned that it must now go for a vote now to the editors and that many papers will not make it past this stage. Is this something you’ve run across before? Can you offer any insight into such a process?

Relatedly my paper is currently on the longer end— above their ideal range by but under their maximum word count. How concerned would you be about the word count at this stage?

Some journals indicate explicitly in their editorial process that papers must come up for a final editorial board vote after peer-review. However, I don't know how common this is, nor do I know anything more about the process itself (including how word-counts may or may not figure in).

Do any readers have any helpful insights to share?

Posted in , ,

5 responses to “Editorial board votes (& paper lengths)”

  1. AGT

    Ethics does this (e.g.). They have voted out a paper of mine before, after a year and half of revisions back and forth. It’s a black box, the board can send you, in this case anyway, comments if they wish to but they’re not obliged to do so. They sent me comments, one board member’s, and it was useless. The board, again, in this case, does not so much comment on scientific quality, the focus is more on whether the paper is significant, unique, creative etc enough to warrant giving it space in the journal given the hard competition. So I think, given that a long paper could empty slots for two shorter papers, having a lengthy paper does not help. But it doesn’t rule it out either. (My personal view of this final stage vote is that it is only necessary because the journal insists on publishing few papers. So again, the general problem in the profession of having journals that are so selective that they publish almost nothing. The other critical point I have is the lack of transparency. In this case at least you might never learn any reason why your paper was voted out. They just didn’t want it, period. Which is a weird statement to make after a lengthy review process where presumably, given the status of the journals, the reviewers are among the best on your field.)

    Reply
  2. a bit cynical

    Maybe it’s me, but I know of such a journal, and I find the stuff published slightly less fun/interesting than journals that are ranked just below it. My guess is that people are not very good at judging originality and potential impact.

    Reply
  3. Ethics?

    If your question is about Ethics, I’ve heard that they reject a significant percentage of papers (maybe roughly half?) that make it to the Associate Editor vote stage. I think the voting process can take a couple of months.
    Regarding the second part of your question, I have had a paper accepted at Ethics that exceeded the recommended word count while remaining under the official word limit. Based on the comments I received from the Associate Editors following the vote, my guess is that exceeding the recommended word count could potentially be a non-trivial–but not necessarily decisive–liability in the vote. How much of a liability it is would likely depend on the Associate Editors’ estimation of the significance of the paper’s contribution.

    Reply
  4. Junior Faculty

    I had not heard of this practice. It’s really shocking. Honestly, it strikes me as morally problematic, given the amount of time and effort that reviewers put into the process, and given just how few papers the journal publishes. It seems like it sucks up a huge amount of very limited resources in terms of people’s time, only to then not publish papers years into the process. That strikes me as impermissible.

    Reply
  5. a bit cynical

    I think there should be a journal called Ethics Rejected, and publish everything that has positive reviews but rejected by the vote. This will help us evaluate whether the vote is counterproductive. Alternatively, every paper that was rejected but published elsewhere should have an unacknowledgement section.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Discover more from The Philosophers' Cocoon

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading