I just received a rejection from an A-list journal. The referee reports were on the whole helpful. I accept the result. But one thing got my goat. In one of the reports, my paper is criticized for not taking account of the "most recent" arguments of, say, McX, someone who is admittedly a top player in the topic I'm writing about. But then the referee directs me to the arguments in two as yet unpublished papers by McX. And these papers are not available online in draft-form, either. Am I to conclude that in order to write top-notch stuff on this topic, I must be in McX's draft-circulation circle? Could it be that in order to do work that's publishable in the A-list journals, I have to keep abreast of the unpublished work of the high fliers? As McX's most recent papers are unpublished, they haven't passed blind review, so how could considering them be a proper requirement for my paper to pass blind review? This seems incredible. It has the air of gate-keeping by an elite inner-circle. I thought I'd write to get your reaction.It seems that in this case the failure to cite McX's unpublished papers was not the main or sole reason for rejection, so I don't see any wrong in suggesting that McX has some new work that's not out yet, but would have to be considered in the next version of the paper, and so on. But, I agree that presenting the failure to cite McX's unpublished papers as a sufficient reason for rejection is out of bounds.
I have never received a report that claims a need to discuss unpublished work. But maybe I've just been lucky. Is this common these days?
13 comments:
obviously, more context is necessary.
i read it as, "hey, here are some stuff you might want to check out." as most philosophers seem decently willing to share drafts, all the report might be saying is "email the person and get your hands on the papers!"
given that the report is on a whole helpful, i would not take that one throwaway comment as a *reason* for rejection. no doubt elite inner-circle stuff goes on, but this doesn't smell like it.
I got a R&R asking me that asked me to write a longer introduction and to address two forthcoming papers in that journal. They said I had four months. When I sent them the stuff a month later, they rejected it about 6 months later because in the interim they decided to accept another paper that said roughly the same thing. Incidentally, neither of the papers I discussed had any bearing on the issues discussed in my paper. Fool's errand.
I was just forced to read an unpublished manuscript in order to referee a paper responding to it. So I could, in fairness, have asked him/her to respond to other unpublished manuscripts in my comments, right?
Look, you would know the answer to this question if you had bothered to read the APA memo displayed at
the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’.
Wouldn't it be somewhat irresponsible for the ref not to take McX's work into account? That is, presumably the ref reasonably believes not just that
i) your work constitutes a serious contribution to the literature (or at least can be reasonably regarded as such) only insofar as McX's arguments (or those like them) are absent from that literature
but also that...
ii) McX's work will be published within a reasonably short time frame.
Presumably then the ref reasonably believes that it would be irresponsible to recommend for publication any article with a quickly approaching expiration date on its contributory significance.
Rejection on the grounds that you hadn't seen unpublished (and unavailable) work sounds nuts...
Asking an author to consider unpublished works as a condition for acceptance is nuts. It can also prejudge who is going to be first past the post when it comes to getting new material out there. And it puts authors in a bind: If it's not in the public domain, it's not just that you don't have an obligation to cite it, but moreover that you have an obligation not to cite without permission. (After all, McX might want to keep his/her work uncited until its published.)
In such a case I'd have to admit to a strong suspicion that the referee was either McX him/herself or one of his or her students. If so, this is especially bad.
It's not at all reasonable to insist that a paper take into account unpublished material as a precondition of publication. Referees shouldn't insist on it, and editors should ignore such advice if it's given.
Of course, it's not unreasonable to inform the author that such unpublished work exists, since it might be interesting and important work.
More generally, I think referees ought to be wary of rejecting a paper on the grounds that it isn't "sufficiently grounded in the literature," or that it "doesn't address McX's work on the topic." Sometimes these observations warrant rejection, but they can also masquerade for insularity or laziness.
Are the two unpublished papers in question mere manuscripts, or are they forthcoming somewhere? If the latter, then I think Anon 12:57 may have a point.
"Rejection on the grounds that you hadn't seen unpublished (and unavailable) work sounds nuts..."
It's an apriori discipline. If you can't work out the future moves in the literature, you shouldn't be in the literature. You should be forced to do science or, if you can't do that, experimental philosophy.
Since when has the publishing game really been reasonable or rational? Unless you take political or administrative games as such.
I have heard of this, especially from highly rated American journals.
The assumption I assume is that "everyone has heard McX's paper" because he gave it in 2 or 3 top depts in the northeast -- and if you did not hear about it, well then it would be a waste of time publishing you anyway -- you are a nobody.
And yes, the world of top American philosophy journal/depts really seems this insular to non-Americans.
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