I often saw publishing as a kind of game. How many separate journals can you publish in? Can you make it into X or Y journal?
The trifecta for me is PMLA, Diacritics, and Critical Inquiry. I still haven't published in CI, so I don't have the trifecta yet.
Showing posts with label journal publication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label journal publication. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Article Guy or Book Guy
It's hard to know whether you are going to be a book person or an article person. At one point I decided not to worry about writing any more books, but a few years after that I published two books. Now I think I'm book guy again, but in the meantime I'm doing a lot of articles because of all the invitations I'm getting.
The problem with the academic system as it's set up is that you need books for promotion, but articles on a year-to-year basis. Writing articles can be a distraction if what you really care about is the book. A book should be at least 50% unpublished in article form, so you have to worry about not publishing too much of it. On the other hand, if that book never gets written, you want to have something to show for all that work.
The problem with the academic system as it's set up is that you need books for promotion, but articles on a year-to-year basis. Writing articles can be a distraction if what you really care about is the book. A book should be at least 50% unpublished in article form, so you have to worry about not publishing too much of it. On the other hand, if that book never gets written, you want to have something to show for all that work.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Some Common Mistakes
A few problems I've come upon recently in reviewing articles.
(1) Vague humanist language: "issues facing humankind"; "the human condition"; "dilemmas of life." Over-enthusiastic, gushing belletristic rhetoric about how wonderful this particular poet is.
(2) Close reading that is painstaking, fussy, plodding, but not really deep; belaboring the obvious. I like to distinguish between close reading and deep reading.
(3) No critical voice; excessive dependence on what the sources say. Citing sources for obvious points of common knowledge, or choosing banal quotes from other critics. A lack of critical authority.
(4) A theoretical framework that doesn't add anything: the reading would be the same in the absence of the framework. Wikipedia-like summaries of theoretical ideas. Citing Foucault for Foucault's most cliché idea about power.
(5) Bad writing by (someone I presume to be) a non-native speaker of English. The person should have checked their writing with a native speaker who is also a good writer.
(6) Citing dictionary definitions of common words. (Always a bush-league move. Very high-school.)
(1) Vague humanist language: "issues facing humankind"; "the human condition"; "dilemmas of life." Over-enthusiastic, gushing belletristic rhetoric about how wonderful this particular poet is.
(2) Close reading that is painstaking, fussy, plodding, but not really deep; belaboring the obvious. I like to distinguish between close reading and deep reading.
(3) No critical voice; excessive dependence on what the sources say. Citing sources for obvious points of common knowledge, or choosing banal quotes from other critics. A lack of critical authority.
(4) A theoretical framework that doesn't add anything: the reading would be the same in the absence of the framework. Wikipedia-like summaries of theoretical ideas. Citing Foucault for Foucault's most cliché idea about power.
(5) Bad writing by (someone I presume to be) a non-native speaker of English. The person should have checked their writing with a native speaker who is also a good writer.
(6) Citing dictionary definitions of common words. (Always a bush-league move. Very high-school.)
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