Publishing in the Humanities, an Introduction
Over at Historiann where, by the way, the discussion of Judith Bennett's (another medievalist) History Matters: Feminism and the Challenge of Patriarchy is still going strong (hint, hint, plug), Ruth Mazo Karras writes up a nice summary of "here's what happens when you submit an article to a typical humanities journal and why it can take so long for it to get into print." If you are thinking of submitting a first article, especially, this is good stuff to know. It's also nice for anybody who might feel that the process is less than transparent. Of course, double-blind reading is supposed to be not that transparent, and I think is a good thing ...
Also, Ruth puts in a plug for the journal she co-edits, Gender and History and explains a bit more about the sorts of articles they're looking for.
2 comments:
The double-blind aspect (at least for Gender and History) was somewhat undermined when one of the reviews e-mailed for an article I had submitted had the file name 'X.htm', where X was the surname of someone working in my field. To be honest I'm not convinced that double-blind really works that effectively in a relatively small field: an experienced reviewer will tend to know most of the people who work on a particular topic. (There are also times when I've read a book review in Early Medieval Europe and known who wrote it before I get to the name at the end, because the style is so distinctive).
Rachel -- That is especially true of some people's writing -- Geoff Koziol, for example. I think that there is more breadth than you think, at least among those of us in the less visible jobs. For example, I was not aware of your extremely cool project until I clicked on your name. And I still don't know who you are, but could probably ask around :-)
In a small field, I think there are still enough people to make sure that there is fairness. Although there is the problem that the people who read our stuff before we even send it out may have to recuse themselves! At some point, I suppose the answer is to send articles out to more reviewers. Or create more early medievalists!
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