The Philosophers' Cocoon

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

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  • How do institutions treat papers accepted around the time a candidate accepts a job?

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

    I know this tends to be institution-specific, but are there any general norms when it comes to whether a publication will count toward one’s tenure if the paper is accepted right around the time that the job offer was accepted? I just received an R&R on a major paper I would love to have as part of my tenure file, and I am also currently on the market with some TT interviews. My typical instinct would be to turn in the R&R as soon as possible, although the journal has graciously given me until March. If I were to wait a bit longer and were to get a job offer from someplace, how likely would it be that the paper could be counted toward my tenure? Without giving away too many identifying details, I already have a couple of publications, and the R&R seems relatively manageable in terms of what the reviewers are asking of me. It’s at a medium-slow journal (so, not Synthese, but not JPhil either). Thanks in advance for any advice!

    Good question. I too suspect the answer might be institution-specific, differing significantly from institution from institution–but still, it could be good to find out if there are any regularities or norms.

    Do any readers have any helpful insights? How does your institution count papers toward tenure and promotion in cases like this?

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  • Tips & resources on how to respond to reviewer comments?

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

    Does anyone have general thoughts, or know of online resources that they can point me to, on how to most effectively respond to reviewers’ comments on one’s submitted articles? I’ve published a small handful of articles so far, and I’m noticing that I tend to go “overboard” when revising (a referee made a comment to this effect), which creates more work for me, and also, perhaps, for referees, who now have a substantively changed paper to review. The difficult is probably most significant when reviewer comments are vague (“connect to x literature” without providing specific references to engage with).

    Any thoughts on how to revise effectively without over-revising would be appreciated.

    I’m not sure if we’ve ever discussed this issue in detail before here at the Cocoon. I just try to give reviewers enough descriptive detail to give them the core of how I’ve addressed each of their concerns, citing which pages of the manuscript make the revised claims in question along the way.

    Do any readers have any tips of their own or know of any good resources for the OP?

    2

  • Can high-quality research offset a sparse academic CV?

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

    A couple years into my PhD program I got a serious illness and had to stop for a few years. I thankfully got better and decided to finish the PhD and am on track to get it in early 2026. Due to this, my academic CV is very empty, which makes me uncompetitive and I had assumed that I will need to look for a job outside of philosophy.

    That being said, my research has now matured and I have been getting some very good feedback. My topic is high risk/high reward, and it’s looking like I have pulled it off and will be making a significant contribution to my area of study. I am now working on getting papers published and presenting at as many conferences/workshops as I can.

    This has made me wonder if I might after all have a future in philosophy. So my question is, could high quality research possibly offset an otherwise quite empty academic CV in getting a job in philosophy? Or is that just not realistic, especially in this environment? Any insight or advice will be appreciated!

    A number of years back I collected some informal data on job-placements and found that while publications seemed to be a strong predictor of hiring, a decent number of people got jobs (both postdocs and tenure-track jobs) with no publications. By and large, though, the people who did that seemed to come from top-ranked programs. Things may have changed since then, so it is hard to say for sure–but getting a job with no publications may be possible. Obviously, it’s also hard to estimate a person’s chances in any given case, as circumstances may differ, so I think there’s no way for the OP to really know without going on the market and seeing what happens. If I were in the OP’s position, I guess I’d try to go on the market while also doing my best to prepare for a Plan B outside of philosophy as a fallback (which seems like a prudent thing for most people to do–I wish I had!).

    What do readers think?

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  • Publishing with your advisor?

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

    I have a question about publishing with advisors. What do people think about it? Do people do it? Should people do it? My advisor and I work on similar things (unsurprisingly), and there’s an idea we think about a lot that has kind of developed organically in conversation. On the one hand, it seems this is how most ideas of advisees develop: they get a lot of input from their advisors but still call the idea “theirs”. So I could just keep on working on it alone and have a single authored paper as a result. On the other hand, I could co-author with my advisor, and it could become a better paper and be out faster. I know that it’s the norm to co-author with advisors in pretty much all the fields but philosophy, but I don’t see it all that often in philosophy. So, what do people think?

    I know that publishing with advisors is common in scientific fields, but my sense is that it is against the norm in philosophy and probably in other humanities fields as well. In terms of the job-market, I suspect the OP would be far better served publishing on their own, as I’ve heard people say things like “If you publish with your advisor, people will assume they did most of the work.” On the other hand, if the OP’s primary concern isn’t the job market per se–but rather putting out the best possible philosophical work–then publishing with their advisor could make sense. So, I guess whether it makes sense may depend on the OP’s priorities.

    What do other readers think?

    5