A Philosopher’s Advice on How to Write & Publish an Article
Want some advice on writing and publishing good philosophy in a good journal?
Daniel Muñoz has some for you at his blog, Big Iff True.
I like the part about “the telos”. What should you aim for, he asks, if you want your manuscript to scream “PUBLISH ME”?
Here are three things he mentions:
- A paper whose contribution is immediately obvious
…the really crucial thing is to start your introduction by framing the question. Don’t just launch into your thesis, bury us in citations, or bust out your “road map.” First lay down the basic concepts that your reader needs to understand the question at issue, then give them a sense of why it matters, and only then give a peek at your answer, making sure that your point ends up looking new and interesting. An easy way to do this is by explaining the main issue in a way that creates tension, then telling the reader (not laboriously showing!) how you’re going to resolve that tension in a novel way…
- A goldilocks thesis
By which I mean: not too epic, not too tiny—just right. You want a claim that’s grand enough to be interesting but not so grand that you lack room for a proper defense. If you’re struggling to publish an ambitious project, the problem might not be quality but quantity: your thesis may be overspilling your paper. (You can’t frame the question right if the question doesn’t fit the frame!) If so, consider some ways of cutting down on grandiosity. Can you split the paper in two? Can you weaken the thesis?…
- The right venue
Even if your paper is exactly what it’s supposed to be, that doesn’t mean that it will get in wherever. Ask your advisors and savvy friends what journals you should be sending which papers to. Journals differ in their preferred (a) topics, (b) word counts, and (c) level of grandeur.
He elaborates on each of these, discusses things to avoid, and walks the reader through the process—including, importantly, choosing the right idea.
Check out the whole post here.
Or, like me, you could decide the entire publishing process is alienating because:
a. Its an insular conversation among experts with no immediate impact beyond the words on the page wherein one publishes ridiculous sounding titles like:
‘Interrogating the Deflationalist Meta-ethical Anti-Realist Account of Non-Propositional Statments.’
But in order leave a mark, you need to read the Smith and Jones 2025 piece in Nous and Jones piece in Synthese, so that you’re ‘engaging appropriately with the secondary literature’ that reviewer 1 thought was relevant,
b. The prestige factor of getting published in ‘the top journals’ is not worth the mental health one expends to try and make that happen.
c. The peer review process itself is completely broken.
Agreed. I’ve had “top journals” dick me around for years over nonsense, continuously evolving objections from reviewers, only for them to click reject anyway. Then I look and what they’ve published and it’s the same, typical micro-move in a niche debate sludge.
Meanwhile, it’s obvious that if you’re friends with the editor or a “big name” peer review basically doesn’t exist for you at most journals.
I sympathize about silly titles, Pete. In fact, I’m writing a follow-up on that very topic:
If you have any examples of ridiculous (or ridiculously good) titles, please feel free to send me an email. See also this classic DN thread.
There is of course this classic: “Could the grounds’s grounding the grounded ground the grounded?” by Jon Erling Litland
:
Regarding titles, when searching through long lists of publications (or the schedule of a large conference with simultaneous sessions), I prefer titles that efficiently convey the subject matter over aesthetically pleasing but uninformative titles. Having to consult the abstracts is time-consuming when dealing with a list of 100 titles. A happy compromise might be reinforcing the common practice of having different objectives before and after the colon, i.e., “[satiate your aesthetic desires]: [informative title].”
But my aesthetic desires require that there is no colon, oh no!
Colons are necessary; there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
I’m sympathetic towards b. and c.. Regarding a., I find two points curious. First, is it truly so frequent that reviewers are recommending literature that genuinely has nothing to do with the topic of the paper? Every time I’ve received a reviewer report that has come with suggestions (or even strong recommendations) for relevant literature, they’ve recommended literature that I would’ve cited or addressed the in the paper somewhere, had I only read or thought about their salience beforehand.
Even in the case where reviewers recommend papers that are unrelated to the question or topic I’m addressing (say, because the papers address a similar-sounding, but in fact quite different question), it still seems worthwhile to include a sentence or two clarifying how the questions are distinct or independent of each other; after all, if that wasn’t clear to one reviewer, there’s a decent chance other reviewers might make the same mistake.
Second, and this is a genuine curiosity basically unrelated to the substance of your comment: I feel like metaethicists are most frequently made fun of for having silly and insular-sounding titles, but I feel like we’re pretty decent at making titles! At least, I don’t see anything too egregious from the last few volumes of Oxford Studies in Metaethics…
Here we go again.
I don’t think it’s just publishing that is broken, I honestly think the entire profession of philosophy is broken. Everything from our teaching, to publishing, to conferences, to hiring practices, to the structure of our majors needs a complete overhaul.
But I don’t really think the profession of philosophy has the stomach for it.
I agree, especially with regard to the structure of the philosophy major and teaching within it. I think either issue would make for a great AAPT session. Nudge, nudge!
Here’s an idea – if you aren’t interested in papers about deflationist meta-ethical anti-realist accounts of non-propositional statements, don’t read them. Others however might find them interesting.
Just a quick note here: what we happen to find interesting is not some neutral fact about the philosophical community, but is rather deeply conditioned by prestige and employment hierarchies. Many incoming grad students would never dream of working on certain topics, but once they study under a prestigious professor who works on those topics, they mysteriously find themselves quite interested.
So there can be whole insular fields that continue to exist partly because prestigious people are still in them. And the jargon-laden title/abstract/paper is just one way in which the field remains insular.
Can’t it be that being a prestigious professor is correlated with charisma and philosophical skill, which in turn helps them share their interests in a way that gets other people excited about it?
I publish quite a bit. In a fairly broad range of venues, including, when I can, high-ranked generalist journals.
I do it because it’s a way to engage in conversation with my community (my fellow aestheticians). I love them, I love their work, and I love participating in our communal project. Publishing is not the only way to do all that, but it is one way. And that’s why I do it, and it’s why I enjoy it so much.
Beautifully put. Sometimes I wonder whether how many of the people commenting on this blog actually even like philosophy, so it’s refreshing to read a comment like this
There’s a plausible distinction between (1) philosophy and (2) the way philosophy is currently institutionalized. One can love the former but not the latter (and not love the latter precisely because one loves the former).
THIS
I find it funny that the top two comments on this thread make opposed points – this one complains that we are being too abstruse and technical, while the one below complains that we are spending too much effort making things easy and digestible!
I think the issue is that there are competing goals of making meaningful and precise points on issues where there has already been centuries of thoughts, while remaining understandable, and it’s really difficult to do either well at all while also attempting to do the other!
Philosophy as a profession, and publishing as part of that, is really in trouble if in order to get published we need to simplify our ideas and make them more digestible.
We work on a field known for, and dominated by, works that are intensely hard to understand even the basics of, and yet, all the advice I read about getting published continually points to making your paper as easy as possible to understand or grasp, and make sure it is a LOPP (least objectionable paper possible).
Too hard to understand? Rejected. Too hard to read? Rejected. Too long or short? Rejected. Not part of the trends? Rejected. Not immediately obvious? Rejected.
And to be honest, it shows in so much of the work being published. You need to wade through dozens and dozens of papers before you find one with an actual novel contribution that is worth reading past the abstract.
So many papers are LOPPs that play the game of, 1) find trending topic 2) claim some conundrum is evident based on assumptions it is assumed most other philosophers have, and/or 3) take one or more well established framework or author or another buzzy trending topics and apply it to trending topic 4) claim that something novel happens, 5) simplify paper for reviewers, and desk editors.
It feels like fan service.
As someone who has been publishing for 20 odd years, none of this is at all recognizable to me…well, except for the tendency of hyperbolic claims that remain undefended.
Just my two cents: because its not recognizable to you doesn’t mean its not true (how is that a defensible claim btw?)
The profession and field of philosophy is large and varied from the 2/2 research gig (not saying that you personally have one of those positions) to the first-gen PhD who teaches 5/5 at a community college where they might say.
“I’ve been teaching for 10 years and my only experience in the field of philosopy has been this one”
Just something to consider; its all relative to our frame of reference and probably important to consider how alienating the publishing industrial complex can be for folks who went down a different career trajectory.
“Just my two cents: because its not recognizable to you doesn’t mean it’s not true (how is that a defensible claim btw?)“
How is that a plausible reading of confused?
I mean I was reading between the lines but I read him as saying because it is unrecongizable to him, how can it be a plausible?
If he was simply describing what his experience has been, great, but given the tone and context, I didn’t read it that way.
In the context of the comment that “confused” was replying to, I’m not sure that pointing out that some people are teaching a lot and thus may have different experiences is very relevant. Who cares? If I have a 5/5 load does this mean I’ll find it more alienating to simplify my ideas than if I have a 2/2 load?
I read “confused” as being confused about the claim that in order to publish one must bow down to pressures to simplify and the existence of these pressures is damaging to the profession because the result is a bunch of papers on trendy topics that don’t say anything. I think one can be confused about this no matter how many courses one teaches.
Sorry, I understand this is a philosophy blog but I was not engaged in a purely logical analysis here but frankly I care because I think one’s experience in academia and their career trajectory is relevant to how they feel about publishing generally.
I was reading what he said rhetorically and in the larger context of my original post, not merely as a hypothetical conditional “If this, then this”
I read him as saying: “I’ve been publishing for 20 years and I don’t recognize this practice, only that people tend to make hyperbolic claims with defending them!”
I find it funny that the top two comments on this thread make opposed points – this one complains that we are spending too much effort making things easy and digestible, while the one above complains that we are being too abstruse and technical!
I think the issue is that there are competing goals of making meaningful and precise points on issues where there has already been centuries of thoughts, while remaining understandable, and it’s really difficult to do either well at all while also attempting to do the other!
“The problem with philosophy is that its papers are too clear and easy to understand” is an odd take.
DailyNous: “here are some quick and totally optional publishing tips, if you’re interested!”
Commenters: “the very idea of publishing is intrinsically evil and corrosive to the human soul—may it burn in the smoldering embers of that dying profession, academic philosophy, which for so long has enabled it.”
The idea of ‘ Publishing ‘ has improved and progressed over years. Yet,so many are dissatisfied and even frustrated at the ‘ stereotype ‘ thought of publication in bits. Many of Standing, Accomplishments and Seniority of two / three / four/….. decades would be eager to contribute by Opinion / Commentary / Current Status / Invited Editorial by journals / Honour Lectures / Keynote Lectures / Orations by conference organisers rather than ‘ submit abstracts ‘ ; this is the way to know ‘ complete and total ‘ component along with futuristic trends. Maybe a relook, fresh thinking, considered thought are the need in evolving times. Changing patterns can be evolutionary and perhaps a way forward if human Cognition is to be identified, recognised and rewarded appropriately, as artificiality enters and threatens to dominate the intellectual scenario , turning the risk of innate qualities redundant.
Decision: revise and resubmit.
Reason: clarity issues.
Too soft, unleash the Reviewer #2 within you! Reject!
I promised I wouldn’t… not again… but maybe… just this once…
Wonderful advice and so helpful. Thank you for sharing it. I’ve never been good at pitching or framing my ideas and I am pretty confident this will help me a lot. It’s so generous of you to write this us Daniel
I agree with a lot of the critiques of the publishing-industrial complex presented in this thread. But I appreciate Muñoz’s advice.
I think some of it might be helpful simply for the aim of presenting a view and submitting to the judgment of my peers — especially his point about framing.
(It is possible, though, that I’m suffering a bit of Stockholm Syndrome and failing to distinguish adequately between what’s good for submitting an argument to the judgment of my peers with what’s good for publishing in an academic journal.)
This is an invaluable guide to the field. Now, if only Plato, Aristotle, Avicenna, Aquinas, Bacon, Hobbes, Spinoza, Descartes, Cavendish, Leibniz, Locke, Hume, Voltaire, Rousseau, Smith, Berkeley, Kant, Mill, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Frege, Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein, Anscombe, Carnap, C.I. Lewis, Peirce, James, Dewey, Kuhn, Feyerabend, Sellars, Brandom, Murdoch, Williams, Nagel, and Parfit had just stuck to writing up and reviewer-proofing medium-sized ideas while avoiding distractions, we’d really be cooking with gas in this field.
I was giving tips for getting your journal articles published. I didn’t say “write only journal articles,” or “publishing is all that matters.”
Publishing is part of the job — but of course philosophy is more than a job!
If you want to know what I think people *should* write, here’s my answer. You should reserve as much time as possible for whatever kind of writing is most meaningful or interesting to you. Try to retain creative freedom and intellectual ambition. Focus on what you really care about, not on trends. Draw on any and all of your favorite writers, whether ancient or modern, philosophers or poets — write with all you’ve got.
The reality is, however, that in order to get and keep a job in philosophy, one has to publish in a very specific way. Your post provides some pointers for how to excel at that task, but it’s worrying that this is the form philosophy takes now. I am not hopeful that exciting, ambitious ideas can emerge from this process.
You make a good point, but honestly, I think there’s a ton of great stuff coming out in the journals.
Off the top of my head, here are some ambitious papers put out by junior scholars just in the last year alone.
I have to get back to work, but I’d also shout out Elise Woodard, along with Kirun Sankaran & Jake Monaghan. No doubt I’m forgetting lots of people, and no doubt there are tons of great papers that I just didn’t read.
Personally, I feel lucky to be in our field, imperfect as it is. So many philosophers genuinely care about writing clear, interesting papers. It’s a great thing!
PS – sorry for the wonky formatting. My nested bullet points ended up not getting nested.
Having moved to philosophy from another field, I agree that in general the quality of work in well-known generals is great – there’s always something interesting and rigorous to read. A great time to be a philosopher!
Thanks for these references!
Do you have any advice for people who want to publish Berkeley-style work?
Get tenure first.
Sadly, my state has implemented post-tenure review because they were worried about a revival of idealism. Even tenure won’t protect me.
They’re right to be worried; the revival is starting in Florida of all places…
Of course the history of philosophy would have been poorer if all the greats had been made to write articles for professional peer-reviewed journals.
But the current system, flawed as it is, is a consequence of a historical circumstances: the expansion of the universities after WWII, urbanization, improved educational access, more prosperity, etc.
There have probably never been more people dedicating their working lives to philosophy than now.
I’m not sure what a system that would allow that would look like, if not something like the current one. These men listed above were almost all from wealthy and privileged backgrounds. My great-grandparents were subsistence farmers.
It’s a question of funding. Society expects professionalization and this is how that looks like. I’m sure that there are fairer and more efficient ways to allocate it, but I am also pretty sure that society was never going to allow me to spend my time thinking about philosophy under just any circumstances.
I’m not sure we can do better, unless we want to go back to a time where it was a leisurely activity of gentlemen.
Probably. But do we see a corresponding increase in quality? It’s worth investigating (if such thing is possible) whether there is something about the way this marriage of philosophizing-as-paid-labor and journal-article-manufacturing has been institutionalized that doesn’t allow for or contribute to great philosophy.
That’s certainly right. And you’re right to point out, and right to lament, the fact that it used to be largely privileged persons who could enjoy the work of philosophy. But two things.
First, have we really moved that far from that past, what with our new aristocracy of “meritocracy?” (See Michael Sandel’s and Daniel Markovits’s recent books, e.g.) Another worthwhile investigation would be one looking for what percentage of today’s great philosophers (whoever they be) had exclusively public school educations, or came from working class families, or had no parent or guardian attend college.
Second, you give us good reason to think about alternative political-economic arrangements. What if laborers didn’t have to work two jobs or work eight-to-ten hours a day in order to provide for their families? What if the state declined to sanction the market’s hostile takeover of the souls of its citizens? What if you didn’t need to be lucky enough to have philosophy as a job in order to do philosophy daily? What if philosophy were introduced in public elementary, middle, and high schools? There are arrangements that would let those who take a shine to it do philosophy in their spare time.
And now here’s the part where I take it back: I’m open to changing my mind, but I think philosophy should be institutionalized in some form or other, to channel discussion, to get philosophers together, etc. I’m just questioning whether it needs to be professionalized, in the way it currently is, in order to do all the good things institutions do.
Thanks, Daniel! This is excellent advice, and a real service to the profession. Particularly for graduate students who aren’t lucky enough to have mentors who will help them think strategically about these things.