The Philosophers' Cocoon

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  • Desk-rejection, or not?

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

    I don't know if I got a desk reject. I submitted to a journal that uses email submission, so no way track. They replied with a receipt acknowledgement and then said due to volume they can't comment on all submissions. Then, there was a lengthy restatement of journal policy (from the website) about maximum word count, which didn't apply to my submission since it was below that word count.

    That was about 5 months ago. The issue is, according to the APA Journal Survey, they tend to make decisions within 4 months. 5 months isn't unheard of for them, but it is fairly rare.

    I'm wondering if they kindly desk rejected me and I didn't realize it. I don't really want to contact the journal, because I'm a firm believer in contacting the journal is a very quick way to get rejected.

    Any thoughts?

    This seems like a boilerplate acknowledgment of receipt of the paper. Although some journals can have relatively consistent turnaround times, it's entirely possible to be an outlier. If I were the OP, I'd either wait to send an inquiry to the journal. Finally, while I too have worried whether contacting a journal may lend itself to rejection, I've heard from others that this worry may not be apt–so I'm not sure whether it's right to be a firm believer that contacting a journal is a quick way to get rejected.

    What do readers think?

    4

  • Editorial board votes (& paper lengths)

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

    I had an R&R at a very selective journal. My revisions were accepted by the reviewers but the editor mentioned that it must now go for a vote now to the editors and that many papers will not make it past this stage. Is this something you’ve run across before? Can you offer any insight into such a process?

    Relatedly my paper is currently on the longer end— above their ideal range by but under their maximum word count. How concerned would you be about the word count at this stage?

    Some journals indicate explicitly in their editorial process that papers must come up for a final editorial board vote after peer-review. However, I don't know how common this is, nor do I know anything more about the process itself (including how word-counts may or may not figure in).

    Do any readers have any helpful insights to share?

    5

  • CFA – Classic Rock and Philosophy

    Call for Abstracts!

    Classic Rock and Philosophy: Dispatches from the Dark Side of the Moon

    Edited by Joshua Heter and Richard Greene

    Abstracts are sought for a collection of essays to be published with Wallace & Jacobs Press on any philosophical topic related to classic rock, encompassing the era of rock and roll from approximately the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s with a focus on album-oriented rock, blues rock, hard rock, and arena rock (including but not limited to bands and artists such as Led Zeppelin, Queen, Pink Floyd, AC/DC, REO Speedwagon, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, The Who, Eagles, The Doors, Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, Judas Priest, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Kansas, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Journey, Rush, Def Leppard, Cream / Eric Clapton, Steely Dan, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Styx, Van Halen, Motley Crue, ZZ Top, Kiss, Metallica, Boston, Chicago, and many more). Potential contributors may want to examine previous volumes from Heter and Greene: Punk Rock and Philosophy: Research and Destroy (2022) and Post-Punk and Philosophy: Rip it Up and Think Again (2024). Abstracts (with an approximate length of 100 – 500 words) and eventual essays (with an approximate length of 3,000 – 3,500 words) should be written for an educated but non-specialized audience. Potential topics include but are not limited to…

    (more…)

    0

  • How do editors’ philosophical tastes affect the review process?

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

    I’m deciding between two journals for a manuscript. Journal A has slightly higher prestige, and publishing there would probably look more impressive to colleagues. Journal B is at about the same level, though not quite as shiny in reputation. The key difference is that the associate editor at Journal A seems to have a philosophical outlook that clashes with mine and has published pieces broadly hostile to the position I defend. The associate editor at Journal B, by contrast, has written on closely related topics and appears to share some of the basic theoretical commitments of my manuscript.

    My question is: how much does an editor’s own philosophical taste or theoretical orientation actually affect the fate of a submission? Are they more likely to desk-reject a paper or pick referees hostile to it if they disagree with its core commitments? Or am I just overthinking this? I’d be grateful for any thoughts or experiences others might have.

    I'm curious to hear people's experiences, particularly editors if they are willing to weigh in.

    Does anyone have any helpful insights to share?

    10