I’ve had only one experience with the *Australasian Journal of Philosophy*, a rejection, but it was excellent. The process was swift and the comments I received were thoughtful and constructive. They desk-reject very few papers and still manage to turn in verdicts usually under three months, it seems, usually with comments.

I had an excellent experience with the Journal of the American Philosophical Association. I submitted a paper and the editor gave me an R&R on the basis of two referee reports. One report was very positive and detailed, raising good concerns that they wanted me to address in revisions. The other report was short, mean-spirited, and gave no grounds for rejecting the paper other than the reviewer’s unsupported opinion that it was a bad paper. Unlike some journals, which often reject papers on the basis of BS reports like that, the editor rightly ignored the report in favor of the good report. I revised the paper, addressing all of the first reviewer’s feedback, and JAPA published it. That’s how to run a journal.

Lots of people supporting the journal of the APA. My experience has been very different. I had an R&R. 11 months ago, I sent page proofs. I heard nothing for 10 months. I then received an email saying “We sent you the proofs, we need to know if you accept the changes.” But I never received the proofs, and no one followed up for 10 months (they gave me 3 days to send the proofs, and didn’t follow up for 10 months!). During this time, I emailed the editor twice. Both times he told me that I should be patient, that the pandemic has put everything on hold. And yet I received a message after 10 months saying that my article was on hold because they never received the proofs … which they did not send to me. So the editor told me to be patient without checking with the publisher (Cambridge), who would have told him that they never received the proofs (again, because I never received them). I brought this to the attention of the editor, and he was fully unsympathetic. I thought an apology or an explanation was due. He offered nothing of the sort, and told me I was out of line for asking about the article again. I finally received an apology from the production company (Cambridge), but still nothing from the editor.

I’ve had good experiences with Canadian Journal of Philosophy, European Journal of Philosophy, Synthese, Journal of the History of Philosophy, among others. Some of these accepted my work some didn’t (multiple times) but in all cases I received substantive comments, and more importantly from my point of view, in a timely fashion.

Re Ergo. I’ve never submitted to it, but thought of it, as they don’t impose word limit on submissions, and in a few occasions I had fairly long papers ready to go. However, they’re not indexed in SCOPUS, and my university (maybe not only mine) puts a lot on emphasis on having publications indexed there, to the extent that something published in a non-SCOPUS journal might not count for prizes/promotion etc.

I had a long but overall very positive experience with Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, thanks primarily to the judiciousness and critical feedback provided by the current editor Victor Caston. The summer after I received tenure in 2017, I submitted a 50-page paper to OSAP that I’d been tinkering with on and off since my dissertation. About 9 months later I received two reports, an R&R and a rejection. Both reports were clearly by senior scholars in my field who had published on my topic. The R&R was helpful and provided a lot of good feedback, requests for clarification, and criticisms. The rejection report was less than a page and contained a number of misreadings and (I felt) unfair reactions to the main ideas in the paper. On his own initiative, Caston overruled the rejection and provided his own 5-page single-spaced editor’s report, encouraging me to revise and resubmit. That report included general and specific comments on my paper, down to page and line numbers, pressing me on just the right points and generously offering suggestions to help shore up the argument. It took me a year to resubmit, mostly due to a persistent diffidence about my views, but I eventually revised the paper and submitted a second version in the summer of 2019. There followed another wait of 8 months for a new report from the R&R reader, this time with a recommendation to publish with revisions. Caston was less positive. He again supplemented the reader report with a lengthy editor’s report of his own: 11 pages of detailed comments on every aspect of the paper, prodding me to make further improvements and close additional loopholes he’d found. So another R&R, but with no further need for outside reader reports things now went very quickly: within a month I submitted a third version of the paper and five days after that it was reviewed and accepted conditionally — again, amazingly, with a further 7 pages of critical comments from the editor.

Was it worth it? I’d certainly not recommend the process for those whose careers depend on a positive outcome. Still, the month or so working on the final version of this paper was one of the most intense and philosophically rewarding scholarly experiences I’ve had. My views developed immeasurably, due entirely to Caston’s scrupulosity. By the end of the process he’d written almost 25 single-spaced pages on three versions of the paper, and despite the pandemic having taken off by this point he generously exchanged lengthy e-mails with me about several key points in the argument. With each version of the paper I was a little more sure I’d put things away, only to be dazed and delighted to discover I could improve things further. It’s a great intellectual gift to be shown how one’s ideas are never final while also being provided with the encouragement to refine them. Thanks Victor!

I had a great experience with Southern Journal of Philosophy; the paper was rejected, but I got the news 2 months to the day that I submitted, and included were comments from 2 reviewers that, while short, were very helpful to me in improving the paper.

I also want to commend the staff and editors at Inquiry. What trouble I did have with my paper there — ultimately accepted, after a looooong time — was due to excessive reviewer tardiness over a couple rounds of revisions, not due to the editors; and the editorial staff were wonderful and very responsive to my inquiries and concerns. I was treated like a human being, and for that I’m grateful.

I noticed someone mentioned that Mind is trying to improve, and that is also consistent with my experience of the editors, however, they can still be at the mercy of reviewers who cling to the bad old ways. Such was my experience, anyway. I hope it’s gotten better.

I have had the best experiences at AJP (several rejections, one acceptance). The referee reports are always done in a timely manner, and they often point out ways to improve the paper.

In addition to the obvious ones (go Ergo!), I have actually had good experiences with J-Phil. They have a terrible reputation. But my experiences have not reflected that reputation. I had one paper accepted as submitted after 2.5 months under review which is obviously great. Another paper received very substantive and useful comments after about 4.5 months. This isn’t amazing, but it’s not too bad compared to other philosophy journals, and it shows that they don’t always stick to their ‘no comments before 6 months’ rule. The only time it took longer than 6 months they actually wrote to me to explain and apologize around the 6-month mark. No other journal has ever done this. So, whilst not perfect, I’m not sure they deserve their terrible rep (I should add that I’m not fancy or well-connected – just a normy).

Philosophical Psychology: initial decision in less than 2 months with 2 reports, decision on revised submission within a week. (Might be biased by the positive verdict but wow, what a quick turnaround!)

I have had two or three papers rejected at /Mind/ in the last decade. In each case, I got some exemplary referee reports: careful, clear, and detailed. Those reports helped improved the submission immensely, and assisted significantly in the papers’ subsequent placement in other great journals. So, thanks to all of my referees at /Mind/. If you have something you think develops a really good idea and is in good shape, I highly recommend submitting there.

Thanks for reposting! If authors would like to provide feedback on experiences with The Journal of Philosophy, we have an ongoing survey open here:

https://forms.gle/xMX8Rpc7W3N3uiRm8

Please also feel to contact me directly at managingeditor(at)journalofphilosophy(dot)org

My experience with an epistemology paper at The Journal of Philosophy was wonderful. My only concern involved the suspicion that the referee working with me could have done a much better job him/herself. Nevertheless, I was treated with a lot of patience, and I believe the paper benefited greatly from the assistance I received.

I’ve been especially impressed with Journal of the APA and Journal of Applied Philosophy.

Whether accepted or rejected at JAPA, I’ve always received a timely decision, with reviewer comments that were obviously written by an expert who read my paper carefully. Copy editing there seems way above average. They accepted a piece of mine last year and assigned it to the best copy editor I’ve ever had.

Journal of Applied Philosophy has been great both as an author and reviewer. As an author, I was impressed with the associate editor who handled my paper. One of the reviewers returned a long, largely negative, largely unhelpful review. The associate editor was clear in forwarding reviewers’ comments to me what mattered most in the eyes of the editors. Having that editorial guidance made it much easier to revise, and instead of being spread thin with desperate tangents targeted at reviewer idiosyncrasies, the revision ended up better than the original submission. It is rare that an associate editor has offered me their interpretation of reviewer comments, and it made an especially big difference in this case. Definitely plan to submit to J. of Applied Phil. again.

Also, Journal of Applied Philosophy sends editorial decisions and all reviewer comments to reviewers at the end of the process. They are the only journal I’ve ever reviewed for that does this, and I wish everyone did. I have learned a great deal about how to write a useful review thanks to reviewing for J. of Applied Phil.