The short answer to Yglesias’s question is “Yes.”
But as I’m incapable of short answers, let me provide a slightly longer one. In this post, Yglesias shares his experience of having learned that
it’s not merely that taking time to help inform a non-specialist audience about political science findings isn’t specifically rewarded, it’s positively punished. And not simply in the sense that doing less research and more publicizing is punished; I was told that holding research output constant, getting more publicity for your output would be harmful to a junior scholar’s career because it would feed an assumption of non-seriousness.
That’s pretty nuts.
It is. I won’t speak for political science as a discipline, but I can speak to the problem as it exists in mine, which is English. The basic logic is that sharing work with the general public is a means of circumventing the “serious” peer review process, and as such is necessarily “unserious.” The problem with that explanation is that the peer review process is itself a monument to unseriousness:
There are numerous examples one could cite of plagiarism, or poor practice, that seem to slip right through the peer review process. Add to this the fact that many, if not most, journals are famous for vetting processes that are as slow as Cream of Wheat going down the kitchen drain. Graduate assistants and faculty editors who lose track of manuscripts; readers who are given six months to complete the review and have to be pushed to complete it anyway; and the capacious use of “revise and resubmit” rather than bluntly saying the article is poor and needs to be completely rewritten—all of these things and more are acknowledged problems with the academic publishing process that make many people reluctant to send work to journals.
The other downside to publishing exclusively in journals that live behind pay-walls is that, while the articles contained therein are totally serious, no one ever reads them. As my advisor once told me, if I want an idea to die, the best thing to do is publish it in a flagship journal. He wasn’t being serious, obviously, but neither was he being completely unserious. To paraphrase what I believe this fellow once told me, but which I can’t seem to locate, my discipline’s flagship journal is treated like issues of The New Yorker: they live next to the toilet or in a pile forever awaiting the day in which we have nothing else to read. It’s prestigious to be published in it, but it’s a means to be hired or promoted, not start a conversation.
It hasn’t always been this way—or, at the very least, we once made a concerted effort to appear otherwise—but as it currently stands, the choice is between being a “serious” scholar who engages no one or an “unserious” scholar whose work is read by many but, because of that, counts for nothing. I’m obviously not endorsing this model, nor am I saying it’s the same in all disciplines, as I would love to be in a discipline in which my work mattered on its merits rather than for what its publication wins me; however, for those invested in the system as it’s currently constituted, the idea of public engagement is understandably frightening. After all, if you’ve spent decades advancing up the tenure ladder by never being read, a situation in which your work might be read and evaluated could result in people judging—and determining whether you deserve—your ostensibly illustrious career.
Only, no. That’s the fear, but far from the reality. If you scroll through the many, many pages I tagged “dissertation,” what you see is a community of very useful people helping me develop my ideas on a daily basis. (Twenty-four comments about Edith Wharton’s understanding, or lack thereof, of heliocentrism? How is that not useful?) So, one of the reasons behind not sharing non-peer-reviewed work with the general public is simply misguided fear; the other is that its difficult to be gatekeepers when there’s no gate, even though the road to it and through it currently resembles a Chinese traffic jam.*
I’ve strayed a little far from Yglesias’s question, but I think a detour into the internal logic of academic publication is necessary to understand why its “serious” fruits must be kept in a closely guarded garden. There’s a lot more to be said about this, obviously, but given that Yglesias was identifying the nuttiness of the situation among political scientists, I think it’s best to stop before my reasoning becomes too discipline-specific. Accordingly, I’m interested in learning whether a similar situation obtains in other humanities disciplines, as I long ago learned that scientists and engineers actually read each others’ work.
*Am I the only one who sees that becoming a metaphor for something sooner rather than later?
[Edited to reflect the fact that it's rude to call people you only think you know because you've been reading them for years by their first names.]
I’ve been meaning to write about this same topic the past few days, in a similar vein. My only comment on Yglesias’ observations surrounds this: “readers who are given six months to complete the review and have to be pushed to complete it anyway”. When I first started being selected to review 12 or 13 years ago, the deadline was three months, and everything was sent by mail. In the past few years, the industry standard has shifted to a month. All this means is that I end up late often, whereas in the past I could always get my reviews in within the three month window. Now, I only have two on my desk, and one is an R&R that has been sent back to me . . .
What is political science for, if political scientists aren’t supposed to engage with lay people?
Finding “Truth”!
And then putting it back carefully where they found it, stepping away, and closing the door.
Considering this is a soft-science debate perhaps I shouldn’t be so concerned, but the way it’s written can be (conveniently) misconstrued to be skeptical of all peer review (when I first read it, I had to find what discipline was being targeted by reading Yglesias, which I consider a dirty trick by you!). Hard science peer review isn’t the same, but a mendacious contrarian wouldn’t care. If this post is found by those who use such postings to their advantage, I fear it might be used as such, as in, “see! even lefties are skeptical of peer review!” Which can be very useful to such as Anthony Watts and other global warming denialists who do not understand enough science to review the papers.
You don’t realize how quickly rabid anti-global warming forces will grasp at a straw, no matter how thin, just to score even a fatuous point. Political gain is all they care about.
Just sayin’
Throw in some of the anti-vaccine goofballs, and step back and watch the misattributions fly.
You don’t realize how quickly rabid anti-global warming forces will grasp at a straw, no matter how thin, just to score even a fatuous point. Political gain is all they care about.
You’re not wrong. All I’ll say is that I’m gonna edit this post right now to reflect that I’m talking about English as a discipline, as I think my offhand acknowledgment that things in the sciences are much better off might get lost in the shuffle.
Thanks! It may be an unnecessary revision, but those with political expediency in mind will put misleading, but accurate quotes in ellipses hoping no one will read the full article. The sad thing is it’s an often successful tactic.
Philosophers read each others’ work.
It’s not as if we have anything better to do.
If you publish an article in a peer-reviewed journal that is behind a paywall, are you (the author) also allowed to host the article for free access on your own web site? Or does the journal have exclusive rights to it?
It varies by journal. Some allow you to put up a draft version (it can be the final draft, but it can’t be the official .pdf), some allow you to do so after a certain amount of time has passed. Most don’t police it, though, so if you leave up a draft version you put up while it was under review, you’ll probably never be told to take it down.
You can find most major publishers’ policies at Sherpa/Romeo.
Edited to reflect the fact that it’s rude to call people you only think you know because you’ve been reading them for years by their first names.
This is rather sweet, Scott. Why not “Mr. Yglesias?”
I’m also faintly surprised by your account of your New Yorker-reading habits. But I suppose you have a lot of other reading to be getting on with.
Not to mention that cleaning up the references to “Matt” was evidently more urgent than filling in the missing preposition in the post title.
Ack!
I thought the title was an intentional homage to Matt’s (I’ll call him by his first name) legendary editing skills…
Yep, as far as feedback goes, publishing an academic article in English is not much different from putting it in a bottle and tossing the bottle into the sea.