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Job-Market Reporting Thread (2025-26)
Job-Market Discussion Thread (2025-26)

  5. I’m less inclined to say that it is a win-win. I’d be happy to work for places where I wouldn’t…

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  • Grading: how much (and which types)?

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

    I am curious people’s thoughts on grading.

    We know (well, at least me and some friends) that many students do not care much about our feedback, and many of them do not even read them. And we also know that grading probably is the least interesting part of teaching (again, at least for me…).

    This semester, I am trying something new. First, I significantly reduced the amount of grading for myself. I made a lot of assignments in-class work, and as long as they were there thinking and writing, I gave them full credit. (Honestly, when I saw that they were that doing things, I cared less about what they actually did… I sometimes even did not read their in-class work… Shhh… Don’t let my students know it.) For a lower level undergraduate course, I only provide feedback for around three short writing assignments (500 words each). Second, for those short writing assignments, I ask them to do it in class and resubmit them later based on my feedback. I force them to engage with my comments.

    So far, I would say that it helped my “mental health” A LOT. I did not fall behind in grading as before, and I feel that I have more time focusing on teaching prep, so that most of my effort regarding teaching has been devoted to in-class time. I also feel that my time is more balanced, and I feel more comfortable working on my own research and doing service. Of course, this is partly because I simply have more time.

    But I do worry that if I give them too little feedback, or, if I assign myself too little grading to do. I cannot help but wonder if I am a bit too selfish. To be fair, I talk to students a lot during office hours and after class, most of whom are those who are interested in philosophy. My question is: how do you approach grading? How much grading do you think is reasonable for a course in this era (students not caring about feedback, the usage of AI, etc.)?

    What do readers think (and do)?

    10

  • Tips for getting one’s book reviewed, etc.?

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

    I have recently landed my first permanent position and I am about to publish a book with a respected academic publisher. It’s my first book publication. A few of my papers have circulated in the field, but I’m still roughly what you’d call a nobody and I do not anticipate that my book by itself will attract much attention. I’m also not awfully well-connected. Since I’ve worked hard on this book, I’m wondering what I could do to make sure it receives a decent amount of attention. Here are questions that I have in mind, I would love to see what others think:

    1) How to maximize the chances that my book gets reviewed? Can I do anything beyond asking the publisher to send copies of the book to journals who do book reviews?

    2) More specifically, how to maximize the chances to be reviewed in the NDPR? I feel like these reviews are 10x more read than the others

    3) Is it acceptable for an (independently motivated) student of mine to review my book? If so, under which conditions?

    4) Can I contact colleagues at other departments and offer them to come give a talk about my book? Is this acceptable only if I offer to pay for my trip? Is it also acceptable if I cannot offer to pay for my own trip and thus expect their department to fund it? If the latter, how to formulate my suggestion/offer without sounding entitled or annoying?

    5) The dream is to have an author-meets-critics symposium about my book in a respected journal. How hard is it to make this happen? What is the best strategy to do so? Should I first contact some potential critics, and then journals once I have their agreement? Should I do it the other way around? Or should I do something else?

    Huge congrats to the OP on the job and book! I’m curious to hear what other readers think. I’ve published several books, and although I haven’t quite done the best with this, here are a few thoughts:

    • On (1): you can reach out to journals directly, which often list book review editors you can contact. If you have some free authors’ copies of your book (which is usually a part of your contract), you can send them off to review editors who indicate interest.
    • On (2): I’m not sure.
    • On (3): that seems like a conflict of interest to me.
    • On (4): I don’t see why not, and I don’t see why you should offer to pay for the trip. If they are interested in having you give a talk, see what they say (about travel costs).
    • On (5): My sense is that you should have a list of critics lined up (who have agreed to do it).

    Do other readers have any helpful tips or insights?

    1

  • Highly regarded epistemology and phenomenology journals?

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

    I would like to ask which journals are particularly highly regarded in the fields of epistemology and phenomenology.

    As far as I understand, Cambridge University Press’s “Epistemology” journal and another titled “Social Epistemology” are dedicated to publishing papers in the epistemology field. How highly regarded are these two journals? How do they compare to the top 10 journals?

    In the phenomenology field, I’ve noticed a journal called “Phenomenology and Cognitive Sciences” with a relatively high impact factor compared to others.

    Would publishing in these journals be considered to confer a level of distinction worthy of respect?

    I don’t work in either area and don’t know much about the field of phenomenology, but my guess is that top-ranked “generalist” philosophy journals (Phil Review, Nous, PPR, etc.) may be the most highly regarded in epistemology.

    What do readers think?

    4

  • What to do about a 2nd R&R one didn’t follow through on?

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

    I submitted a paper to a journal back in 2022-23. It went through two rounds of review and in the end I got 4 distinct referee reports, including one that was almost 6,000 (!) words long. The editors did not give me any direction about how I should deal with such unwieldy reviews (at the time I was a postdoc and had less publishing experience). But during the 3rd round of revisions, I felt defeated and gave up. Now, with some time and distance from the paper, I would like to return to trying to get it published again. The debate has not moved on since my paper and I believe it still has something to contribute to the conversation. I do feel quite terribly about the whole ordeal. How should I go about doing this? Should I write to the editors about a paper that was left in limbo from a few years ago (though the editors have since changed)? Should I just start over, rewrite the paper to update it, and submit to a different journal? What obligations do I have towards the original journal?

    I empathize with the OP, as I had a paper like this a few years ago. I ultimately let the journal know that I had elected not to revise, as I couldn’t quite figure out how to proceed. In the OP’s case, I guess I don’t think it could hurt to ask the editors if they’d still consider revisions. But maybe it also depends on how confident the OP is that they can complete the revisions at this point (and what kind of time frame they think it would take)?

    What do readers think?

    5