Hi everyone, and a special wave to our new member Mark Timmons!
When graduate students ask me about publishing, I often suggest they start by submitting a tight discussion/commentary piece. The trouble, however, is that I don't know which journals welcome them. Ethics, of course. And APQ and AJP, I think. But which others? So, with your much appreciated help, maybe we can generate a couple useful lists. And so:
1. Which journals welcome discussions/commentaries on works they've published?
2. Which jounals also welcome discussions/commentaries on works published elsewhere?
Under category 2 I think of Analysis.
I also think that is good advise to grad students.
JESP is great place, and it published discussion notes on articles posted in other journals. Also, PEA Soup and Leiter had a bit of discussion on this. It’s a bit dated but there is some useful information. The PEA Soup post is here: http://peasoup.typepad.com/peasoup/2007/03/publishing_disc.html. The Leiter post in linked to in that post.
Here’s a non-corrupted link to the PEA Soup post
http://peasoup.typepad.com/peasoup/2007/03/publishing_disc.html
Does Analysis really fit category 2? I’d be glad to hear if they do, but their author instructions state:
The journal I edit, the recently relaunched Res Philosophica, publishes discussion notes in all areas of philosophy (history included), including replies to pieces published elsewhere.
It’s also worth pointing out the newer journal, Thought, that publishes only shorter articles.
Under category 1 here are a few: American Journal of Bioethics (AJOB), AJOB Neuroscience, and Brains-Behavior-Science (BBS). They all publish response pieces (usually under 2k words) to target articles.
Thanks for the help everyone. Yes, I’d seen the old posts focusing on those that accept commentaries on work published in other journals (Philosophia, by the way, is great in this respect). But I’ve been struggling mostly with finding a nice list under category 1 (above). Johnathan, thanks for your illuminating leads. Future Googlers and I will be grateful for any further additions.
Thanks again!
FWIW, the most common rejection letter I’ve got from Analysis (there’s actually a decent data set) says that they don’t publish discussions of papers published elsewhere. (I’ve tried in vain to disguise the fact.)
Ethics, Policy, and Environment actually invites comments on some of the papers they publish.