Let’s have some more fun with the journal survey data. Yesterday, we ranked a handful of top-tier journals based on review time. Have you ever wondered which of the top (general) philosophy journals are more likely to give you comments? Here’s a bit of data based on the journal surveys. The number to the left of each journal reflects the percentage of submissions that received comments from a referee.
| % Received | Journal |
| 100 | Australasian Journal of Philosophy |
| 81.63 | Mind |
| 76.62 | Philosophical Quarterly |
| 76.47 | Philosophical Studies |
| 60.38 | PPR |
| 53.85 | Nous |
| 40.63 | Journal of Philosophy |
| 40 | Philosophers Imprint |
| 36.36 | Philosophical Review |
| 13.27 | Analysis |
Some Observations
Cut Analysis Some Slack
Recall that Analysis boasts an average review time of .69 months. They are very forthcoming with the fact that you are not likely to receive comments from them, and this seems perfectly acceptable given their average review time. There are a few other journals that should be cut slack too. But Analysis stands out.
The 50% Club
I’m a bit surprised to see low percentages at so many journals. Half of the journals seem to give comments 50% of the time or less – less in many cases.
My New Heroes
AJP, PQ, Phil Studies, and PPR stand out. Note that Phil Quarterly and PPR have some of the quickest turn around times, but they also are up there in terms of submissions that receive feedback (especially Phil Quarterly). I think you owe Katherine Hawley dinner next time you see her at a conference. Phil Studies and AJP also stand out. Their average reviews times are lower than PPR and Phil Quarterly, but they are still both at the top of the pack in terms of providing authors with feedback. AJP is particularly impressive – 100%! You guys owe Stewart Candlish dinner too.
The Phil Review number seems surprisingly high. Maybe they’ve changed since I was there, but I would have put the number closer to 15% at that time. There is a sample size issue here I’d guess, as well as perhaps a non-random sample.
Numbers seem high across the board for quite a few items. I’ve noticed that acceptance rates for a lot of the journals seems much higher than what journals typically report.
There was a hypothesis that these surveys would turn into a kind of pity party, and that survey participants were disproportionately more likely to fill out surveys if they had bad experiences at journals (e.g…persons whose papers were rejected without comments after several months). I had this concern. Leiter had the concern. Thom Brooks expressed this concern.
However, I’m starting to suspect that maybe the opposite is true. Given some of these high numbers, I’m thinking that it might be that survey participants are disproportionately more likely to have had positive experiences with the journals they report on.
Actually, with the Phil Review numbers, the high comments rate is consistent with the pity party hypothesis. The papers that got the slowest responses usually also got comments. The causal arrow there runs in both directions: comments slow the process down, and sometimes it is embarrassing to send no comments after time t has elapsed, so some comments will be procured.
Thanks, Andrew, for this, but a couple of caveats:
1. The Philosophical Quarterly figure of 77% is certainly an overestimate, though we do our best.
2. Credit for PQ efficiency is due primarily to our terrific Journal Manager, Moira Gilruth. If you’re in St Andrews, please call in and thank her not me!
Brian,
That seems absolutely right. A high comment rate is compatible with the pity party hypothesis. I was thinking that some of the other high numbers counted against it (e.g. higher than average acceptance rates, higher than average invitations to revise and resubmit, and higher than average acceptances on those revise and resubmits)
The only number that I am confident is higher than average are the acceptance rates. I can only assume that both revise and resubmit numbers are higher than average.
I’d be curious to know if those numbers generated from the surveys here are higher than what you think they were at Phil Review.
Katherine,
Thanks for the feedback. It sounds like philosophers owe Moira dinner.
As I noted earlier in this thread, I’m starting to suspect that numbers are high across the board (not just for percentage of submissions that receive comments).
I’m curious how much higher you think the other numbers are for Phil Quarterly
Initial Acceptance Rate = 7.69%
Overall Acceptance Rate = 15.38%
Percentage of Submissions Invited to Revise and Resubmit = 11.56%
I suspect that these numbers are higher than your actual averages.
(In any case, if the numbers are higher across the board for all journals, then I think we still have some good reason that Phil Quarterly is doing better comparatively to some of the other journals in terms of measures that authors care about…so we can still use this data to say kudos to Moira)