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I haven't submitted to any of the "top 3" in years, and in fact have only done so twice ever, IIRC. I also infrequently cite any work that they've published recently. https://twitter.com/busbyj2/status/1289253188625772545
There are reasons. First, because I've never had a good review process at any of these journals. JoP once rejected me after an R&R, when I had 3 "yes" reviews and 1 "maybe" (from what I could tell). That's just a waste of everyone's time. ISQ published the paper w much less fuss.
Second, b/c they appear to publish things based on methodological trend rather than substance or importance. Right now the fad is experiments. There is nothing of importance in IPE that experiments have helped us understand. That's not a popular view, but it is my view.
Almost no point in submitting to these journals without using a method that I think forces my subfield into being dumber. So I don't.
Third, it's hard to remember the last time "ground-breaking" work in my areas was published in these journals. The action is in the disciplinary journals. We don't live in a world were we need the field journals to disseminate knowledge. So why not go to where the action is?
Fourth, impact factor/"prestige" means basically nothing to me. I do not browse issues of any journal, looking for things to read. Does anyone? More people will read my research based on my tweets than where it is published.
So why put in lots of time/effort to place a paper in an outlet that my field is not active in, where fewer people I care about will see it, and which has a rejection rate for my field of nearly 100%?
Fifth, because in general I want to destroy as many of the bullshit status games that exist in academia as I can, and journal rankings are among the truly dumbest of those. Is research good? Why don't you read it rather than out-sourcing your opinion of it to 1980s rankings.
I hate that these things matter so much in hiring/T&P. It is just not the case that the "top" journals publish the best work. In many cases they publish some of the *worst* work, the kind of work that actively harms the intellectual development of our field.
There are other "major" journals that I do not submit to. World Politics is another one. I never submit anywhere with a fee (which precludes many major econ journals). I try to avoid Elsevier. But the "top 3" is, IMO, just a waste of time and effort. Why? To please Americanists?
Lastly, I'm not at all a bigshot, but I have a little bit of an audience. So I like to signal-boost less prestigious journals that, IMO, are really making an effort to publish innovative and important stuff, not stuff w the cleanest identification.
We need more creative thinking, door-opening,
"provocative" work. Theoretically, empirically, substantively. None of our methods are perfect, ever, so we need to obsess about that less. It seems almost impossible to publish anything like that in the "top 3".
"provocative" work. Theoretically, empirically, substantively. None of our methods are perfect, ever, so we need to obsess about that less. It seems almost impossible to publish anything like that in the "top 3".
I didn't go to a fancy school for PhD, and I'm not at one now, but I do have tenure at a respected institution. I didn't need a top-3 to get that. It's important to know that that is possible. But there were questions asked. I got one of them a couple of weeks ago, in fact.
Why? Who benefits from this? And why do we care what *they* want, whoever "they" even are? Publish at a place that will do your work justice, and then let folks know about it. We'll still read it even if it isn't in APSR!
