Couldn’t find the original thread from the other place, but I've tried to put together here what I can remember about my advice on publishing—specifically, in philosophy journals—based on working on four journals, for (gulp) well over a decade now.
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First and foremost, there is almost no agreement on norms of philosophy journal publishing. Even within a single publication, things can change across time, from one EiC to another. Always read instructions; always ask if unsure.
If your paper is under review somewhere that takes anon review seriously, don’t post/present the paper with identical title/abstract! Many a paper has been slowed down by ed/ref learning the AU's identity by e.g. an email alert about a preprint in their AoS. Paraphrasing will help you here!
It’s fine to decline an invite, just do so promptly. No reasons need be given—we know everyone is busy! But please recommend alternative people if you can. (Note: editors almost certainly know the big names; it’s the late-stage PhDs, post-docs, ECRs we’re looking for.)
The purpose of referees is to advise editors; author feedback plays a valuable but not necessary* secondary role. So you needn’t work out how to solve the problems the paper faces, merely summarise them for the editors.
*Unless you recommend R&R—the author needs to know what you want
The One Trick That Angry Referees Don't Want You To Know: Write your reports about the paper, not the author: ‘this paper argues X’ or ‘this paper hasn’t engaged with the literature around X’. Much harder to be (accidentally or otherwise) rude, dismissive, condescending, presumptuous, Ref 2-ish.
Do your best to accommodate referee concerns, if only to idiot-proof your paper from their misunderstandings (since if an expert reader can get things that wrong, so too will others). But…
Aside to your thread, but still: the double anon review has established itself more strongly in philosophy than other fields I know (linguistics, psych, anth, biology)
And I don’t think I buy it 100%. Should authors have the right to waive anon? I get reasons why not, but it’s not clear cut, imv
Anon review means not being able to curry favour, enact vendettas, avoid retaliation, etc etc, and as editors what we want is the most unbiased advice we can get.
(FWIW not only is double anon well established, if anything, philosophy is moving toward triple anon review.)
Single anon yes, of course, that’s a norm everywhere. But double (let alone triple) is much more common in philosophy than elsewhere
Again, I understand the good reasons for author anon, but there’re also reasons against, no? One is: authors want to preprint the actual paper, with its real title
The point of the process is to help editors decide what to publish, and knowing an author's identity may introduce bias into a referee's recommendation, making it less trustworthy from an editor's pov.
No reason for the preprint not to use the 'real' title and the submission the paraphrase.
Comments
*Unless you recommend R&R—the author needs to know what you want
And I don’t think I buy it 100%. Should authors have the right to waive anon? I get reasons why not, but it’s not clear cut, imv
(FWIW not only is double anon well established, if anything, philosophy is moving toward triple anon review.)
Again, I understand the good reasons for author anon, but there’re also reasons against, no? One is: authors want to preprint the actual paper, with its real title
No reason for the preprint not to use the 'real' title and the submission the paraphrase.