1/ Why is "framing" and lit review so contentious in sociology? A thread for #soctwitter and assorted bystanders.

2/ Last week, our department had a very nice panel where faculty answered questions publishing. Panel included current/former editors/deputy editors of ASR, AJS, Contexts, Soc of Ed, SPQ and more. (Yes, our dept is super professional and service oriented).

3/ Most advice was simple and intuitive: keep revising, show your work, read the journal you submit to, take rejection in stride, accept the randomness of reviews, etc. BUT the discussion of framing and lit review was long and complex.

4/ So, what's the deal? Why does that create nightmare for sociologists? My theory: It combines literary writing and politics in a way that doesn't match the positivist ethos of journal based sociology.

5/ To get my point, you have to buy into my description of the lit review/framing in sociology. In physcial science, you may get about 1 page of lit review before you dive into the study, often less. In sociology, you get a 5-10 pages reviewing the lit 2 justify the problem.

6/ So why does brain surgery research need about 500 words of justification while sociologists need about 5,000 words? It's bonkers. But here's why:

7/ Reason: residual humanism. Sociology got started in the 19th century and we get rid of the "must review everything" mode of scholarship.

8/ Reason: personal safety. Basically, you can't get a big pub unless there is nearly unanimous agreement. So if you piss off one reviewer, the whole thing is off. Losing peer reviewers because you forgot 1 citation is just dropping the ball. So you have a big, lit review.

9/ Reason: Lit review/framing is essentially a rhetorical exercise in building a coalition for your paper. That requires a lot of hemming and hawing and qualifications. It is also an admission that your paper lives and dies based on its popularity, not how well executed it is.

10/ Reason: sociology is a relatively low consensus field. Basically, when there is disagreement on what counts as quality science/scholarship, you need some way to manage the reader. You can't persuade with research design alone. You need to be more discursive and rhetorical.

11/Bottom line: framing is a nightmare for sociology because it's a throwback to pre-positivist social science, it's about politics, it's about low consensus, and it's basically a "personal safety" move designed to thwart reviewers. No wonder it gives us nightmares!