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Should CVs flag publications that are part of a special issue, etc.?

In our September “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks:

Is it okay to list a publication in a journal without noting that it’s in a special issue or special edition or symposium (but still peer-reviewed)? I realize that doing so is less than fully revealing about the pub, and that in asking the question here I’m calling attention to that fact, perhaps thereby inviting a more disapproving response. But I ask folks to please try to look past that, and just imagine seeing it listed as a publication in that journal (on a CV or website), and then later learning, through some other means, that it was in a special edition. Would you then judge the author as deceptive or shady, even if the piece was fully peer-reviewed and accepted by the journal?

Thoughts from readers?

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3 responses to “Should CVs flag publications that are part of a special issue, etc.?”

  1. Michel

    It used to be normal to do this. But also, it used to be that most special issues were basically invited pieces with no real peer review.

    Most special issues now are properly refereed, and the submissions are anonymized. So I don’t think we need to mark them out any more. It doesn’t look like most people are, and I have followed suit in not doing it myself. I do mark out invited contributions that don’t go through anonymous peer review.

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  2. Anonymous

    I don’t think it matters, so long as it was peer-reviewed as normal articles would be. It used to be more helpful to flag it, when special issues were mainly invited and not peer-reviewed, and were also physical copies so you would hold an issue and see several papers all on a topic, see who else published in that issue, etc. (which is less easily done when everything is published online, and less often do people discover what else is published in a particular issue). I myself wouldn’t care if I discovered someone’s article in Synthese or Phil Quarterly (etc.) is in a special issue (and Synthese does a LOT of special issues).

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  3. Anonymous

    I guess it depends on how the article got in. When i was a special editor (phil studies) a few years ago, it was no less rigorous than the regular process. We got blind reviewers to give their views and on their basis, and our own judgment occasionaly, accepted or rejected papers, and plenty were rejected even though they were invited to submit. If that’s how your issue worked, then I think marking it out on your CV as a special issue would seriously undersell yourslef, since some special issues are not peer reviewed, or the peer review is pro forma.

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