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Journals that accept short papers in philosophy and/or political science?

A reader writes in by email:

Do you know of any journals that take short response pieces to papers in other journals, maybe around 3000 words? … whether philosophy or political science?

In philosophy, I’m immediately aware of Analysis and Thought–and I know that some journals (such as JESP) accept reply pieces/discussion notes. Beyond these, I suspect quite a few philosophy journals are willing to consider short papers, as journals typically only have maximum (rather than minimum) word-limits. But then again, I don’t know how amenable different journals are to short-papers.

Do any readers have any helpful knowledge on the OP’s query to share?

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9 responses to “Journals that accept short papers in philosophy and/or political science?”

  1. Anonymous

    Res Philosophica launched a separate category for self-contained short pieces a few years ago: https://dailynous.com/2023/08/10/journal-to-begin-featuring-short-philosophical-essays/

    The ResPhil Shorts effort was driven by Helen De Cruz. It isn’t clear whether the journal is still inviting short submissions since her death last year. I hope they are. Her vision for them remains genuinely neat: https://resphilosophica.org/submissions/styled/

    Reply
  2. Sam Elgin

    I suspect that Analysis is not an option in this case. My understanding is that they only accept replies to other papers in Analysis – not other journals. However, if the author can frame their paper as a broader issue – rather than responding to a particular paper – it would be a good option. One journal I’d recommend looking at is Inquiry – which I believe welcomes responses to papers in other journals.

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      Can confirm. I had a paper desk rejected there recently, for precisely this reason. D’oh!

      Reply
  3. Daniel

    It seems like Marcus and the first anonymous reply are misreading the original question, whichis asking about response papers, not about short original pieces. For journals that accept response papers to pieces not in the journal itself, JESP is the only one I am aware of. It’s a shame, because it really cuts down on opportunities for conversation in print.

    Reply
  4. Chris

    Philosophical Exchange focuses on publishing replies
    See
    https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rapx20

    Reply
  5. Declan

    I think Philosofia accepts replies to papers outside of the journal. Their word count guidelines aren’t that clear though – it just says the papers are generally about 20 pages.

    Last time I checked, Phil Quarterly’s guidelines say that they rarely accept replies to papers outside of PQ, so not an outright ban on them. Not sure about the word count though.

    Reply
  6. Anonymous

    I believe that Philosophia does.

    Reply
  7. Anonymous

    I have had some success with Acta Analytica (https://link.springer.com/journal/12136). They don’t have a separate section for shorter replies pieces. But I have submitted papers to them that are, functionally, shorter papers that respond mostly to one author. And they don’t desk reject the papers for that reason.

    Reply
  8. Anonymous

    Logos & Episteme has published reply articles to epistemology papers published elsewhere.

    Reply

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