Tue 24 Nov 2009
Parts and wholes
Posted by John Turri under Uncategorized
[8] Comments
I suspect many of us have grappled with this issue.
So you’ve got a research program, with at least two main parts, X and Y. Working out all the issues associated with both X and Y simply cannot be done in an article. It will take at least two, and probably three or four, and eventually will lead to a monograph. But for the moment, you’re trying to publish your results on X and your results on Y, since this will contribute to an ongoing debate, and let you stake your claim to some promising ideas.
At some points, your work on X inevitably depends on what you have to say about Y. But, as I said, you just can’t do it all in one article. And you’re honest about this. At the relevant point, you say, “Here I depend on what I’ve argued elsewhere,” or something to that effect. But referees seem to very much dislike this. They say things like, “The author points out that the argument here depends on other work. But this really needs to be worked out here. Otherwise, the paper isn’t publishable.”
So what’s the solution? Here are some possibilities:
- (A) Forget the articles. Just publish a book.
- (B) Appeal to the editor.
- (C) Keep submitting the articles to good places, hoping for a more sympathetic referee.
- (D) Don’t be honest. Don’t point out the dependency. Hope the referee doesn’t notice.
- (E) Give in and write a really long article (c. 20000 words). Hope that the referees don’t say “This is too long. It should be broken up.”
Option A forgoes some potentially nice publications in the short to medium term, which is difficult to do for junior people. Perhaps it’s an easier choice for more senior people, though even they run the risk of getting scooped, especially if the research project deals with a “hot” or emerging topic. The expected utility of option B seems quite low, especially at the very good and elite journals, where they get a surfeit of excellent submissions, in which case they really have little incentive to intervene. I can’t see myself choosing option D. I’d be leery of option E. Option C isn’t so great, but maybe it’s the best of the lot.
What would you do? Is there a better option?
Of course it depends on the specifics, but when I’ve found myself in situations like these, I usually try to give the bare-bones version of the argument of the other paper — the equivalent of a 300-word abstract, maybe — pointing to the fuller paper for more detail.
Sorry, clicked too soon. meant to add:
The point is to give enough to (a) show that I’m not making a totally crazy assumption, such that people might be interested in this conditional argument, (b) show that I’m aware of the obvious objections to the unargued view that I help myself to, and maybe (c) get people to read the other paper.
Thanks, Jonathan. So let’s add this option to the list:
(F) Briefly summarize the other paper’s argument. Hope this suffices.
A modification, (F’): Summarize the other paper’s argument in enough detail to be useful to anyone who’d ask, but put that section in a clearly marked appendix to minimize complaints from anyone who wouldn’t.
I think Greg’s advice is good. I think the worst thing to do is do nothing. I had a paper I really liked sent to journal X where the ref had a pretty positive reaction to it, but thought I needed to address an objection that I had just written an entire paper addressing. I worried that mentioning that this objection had been addressed elsewhere was out of bounds, so I ended up with a rejection from what seemed to be an otherwise very sympathetic ref.
I like the answers so far insofar as they aim to briefly address the issue. But can I add that it is a good idea to anonymize the reference to one’s other paper, just because it is good form and we really ought to aim for anonymous refereeing? I think we should try to minimize occasions for referees to know who wrote a paper even if in the real world that goal is not always obtainable given how small the field is.
Ahrg, this was a trap! I thought this post was about mereology
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Seriously, this is a hard one, John. As Jonathan suggests, a lot depends on the specific details of the situation and in any case only time will tell.
For what it’s worth, I found myself in a very similar situation and I decided to go for the book.
My decision was mostly affected by the fact that my situation was somewhat different: I needed a well-developed account of X and Y to be able to give an account of Z (not just an argument that can be summarized) and that the piece giving an account of Y was not really a stand-alone piece but together with the piece about Z was well over 20,000 words after cutting a lot of stuff and most journals wouldn’t even consider looking at something that long.
My decision was also affected by the fact that I happened to receive two offers from two series editors who knew my work (and read drafts of the material that I was desperately trying to turn into a couple of stand-alone journal articles) and who didn’t feel they needed to see much more before offering me a contract. It was also affected by the fact that the book is going to come out as part of a new series with a great series editor and editorial board. (Btw, at a certain point, I was even contacted by a representative for a certain academic imprint whose initials are O, U, and P who heard about the book from someone we both know.) All this without me even trying to publish a book! The moral of this long story is: if you are seriously considering going for your the book option because of the tight connections between the topics you are working on but at this point of your career you are not ready to put a lot of work into a book before having a contract in hand, it might be worth putting the word around–you never know what could come your way
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I entirely agree with Mark’s point (this happens to me a lot, I find): such an appendix should give a self-contained, anonymous, and mechanical account of the missing piece(s) you need for your original argument.
Cases vary, but I would think that a reasonable referee should just want to see what your proposal is for filling the hole and not, so long as prima facie plausible, get into whether yours is a good filling. True, not every referee is reasonable. But, your life will contain much less pleasure and zero more publications if you set out to please unreasonable people.