The Philosophers' Cocoon

7 responses to “Making yourself known as an available referee?”

1. Always a Back Judge, Never a Referee

   January 15, 2026

   I too had this thought, and I was told to sit tight. I (begrudgingly) accepted that advice, and I now think it was the right advice.

   As you publish more, and as you participate in the field more, you will along the way become more well known (directly and indirectly) to editors, and your sensibilities as a referee will develop. (This is, the most direct answer to your question: you become known to editors by publishing, by attending conferences, by giving comments, and so on.)

   And, at least in my experience, you should savor this time! It sounds like you are early career, and you have plenty on your plate, in terms of finding your scholarly personality, developing your courses, getting a lot in the pipeline.

   Do not worry about returning the service now! I prefer to think of my participation in the field as a whole. I do not need to make all of my contributions now. For some of them, I did them in the past, and that window has closed. For others, either I am still ripening, or I have other immediately more pressing concerns, but the window will open in the future. And of course, other contributions are on today’s to-do list!

   Loading…

   Reply
2. Anonymous

   January 15, 2026

   I have sometimes recommended my graduate students when declining a referee request that I’m unable to accept, and which I think my student would be ideal for. You could talk to your supervisor or equivalent (not sure what your position is) to ask if they might do this for you. They might also then be able to offer some support when it comes to producing the report — in general, I think we don’t do enough to actually teach new referees what to do. I try to address this a bit with my own students.

   Loading…

   Reply
3. Anonymous

   January 15, 2026

   I have refereed a lot … at least 230 papers. But I have had a long career as well. I will tell you how I started to get asked to referee. The first time, was due to the fact that a faculty member from another university was visiting the university where I was doing my PhD and he just asked me if I would referee a paper in my area for a journal he edited (an okay journal … 3rd tier). He knew about my PhD work, because he knew the people I was working with (and he liked and respected them). Then, the second time, a senior person whom I had met at a conference, who gave me very constructive feedback on a paper of mine addressing her work, recommended me to an editor of a journal (2nd tier). It was for a then-niche topic that has now become quite popular. I spent 60 % of my career at a 4 year state college … I seldom got asked to referee; then I moved to a research university and I get asked a lot (since January 1 I have been asked by 3 journals – and I have agreed to referee just one of those). So, if my experience is typical, you need to get known for your work a bit. Then when senior people decline offers they can recommend you.

   Loading…

   Reply
4. Anonymous

   January 15, 2026

   I edit for a journal, and we would love if people reached out to us to let us know what they could referee in, specifying areas or figures they could do.

   Loading…

   Reply
5. Michel

   January 15, 2026

   The more I publish, the more requests I get. I had one request in the last year of my PhD (or maybe shortly after defending), then nothing for a few years, then a few, and now, nine years and a couple dozen papers later, I get loads. I completed something like 25 reports last year, and for a couple years before that it was around 10-15.

   I enjoy refereeing. I have a teaching job, so it’s one of my main points of contact with the developing literature and the research community.

   Loading…

   Reply
6. Charles Pigden

   January 15, 2026

   I am rather fed up with refereeing, and, having done my duty conscientiously for nearly 40 years, I feel that I have paid my debt to philosophical society. So I often decline refereeing requests. (Not always: I have refereed two papers in the last month so. ) But with one of my research specialities (conspiracy theories) I have what I call my ‘Brush-Off List’, consisting of scholars, mostly junior to myself with the same AOS, who I can recommend to editors as competent referees. I suspect that there are other philosophers, roughly my age, who also have brush-off lists wrt to (some of) their areas of specialisation. So a good way for the OP to pick up refereeing gigs would be to get themself onto the brush-off list of some reasonably well-known philosopher who gets more refereeing requests than they can (or would like to) cope with. Is there somebody, reasonably prominent in the OP’s subfield, who knows and respects their work, and who might like to do a bit less refereeing? If so, why not write to them/talk to them offering your services? One of the problems with the refereeing process is that the burden of refereeing tends to fall on older and/or more prominent scholars who consequently tend to suffer from burn-out. Hence the delays and the grouchiness. Brush-off lists provide a partial solution to the problem, enabling the young and keen to substitute for the old and jaded.

   Loading…

   Reply
7. Anonymous

   January 16, 2026

   First, I’ll say that if you’re junior, then spend your time and energy getting yourself established in your career – you can then “pay back” the work as you get more established (and as others have said, if you are publishing and at conferences, you’ll soon have more requests than you want.

   If you *do* want to be a referee, though, some submission portals for journals make you set up a profile, and in that profile you list areas of expertise for reviewing. So if you *really* want to referee more now, you could set up profiles at a number of journals you’d like to review for even if you don’t have anything to submit to them a the moment.

   Loading…

   Reply