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My Peer Review Experience

3/8/2019

(I started this post in May 2018. It is being updated as relevant.) Below I share the review process for each of my peer-reviewed articles, along with the time frame from first submission to acceptance for publication. I am putting this account on here after numerous discussions with graduate students and in academic groups. In writing it, I was inspired by Nate Jensen’s blog and several scholars' similar posts on Twitter.

The peer review process that is essential in academia is rather difficult to master. Journal editors have a lot of discretion (and justly so), and making an article ‘hit’ might take years, or it might get placed quickly. As many would tell you (and many others might disagree), “if you are not getting rejected, you are not trying hard enough”. Further, these are two very useful accounts on the role of the peer review process by Tom Pepinski and Jeffrey Isaac.

Graduate students reading my account below should notice (1) how many projects are juggled at the same time; and (2) the rather quick turnaround, esp. from receiving an R&R to sending in a revised submission.

14.        PPQ - R&R in 2018; published 2019. The original idea was the paper in item 12 that kept getting rejected; until we wrote a different article - in EUP; then re-submitted the improved original analysis to PPQ.
13.         EJPR - Feb 16: desk reject; BJPS - Feb 2016 - reject (May 2016); CPS - May 2016: desk reject; EPSR - June 2016: reject (Nov 2016); Political Communication - Jan 2018: R&R in May (3 R&Rs in June, July, August): acceptance in Sept 2018.
12.       BJPS – July 2017: desk reject; WEP – July 2017: desk reject; EUP – Sept 2017: major R&R which we returned in a month; followed by an invitation to write a different paper with the same data; wrote the new paper in December 2017, and it was accepted to publication in Jan 2018; the original paper was eventually published in PPQ - item 14 on this list)
11.       APSR – Sept 2014: rejected March 2015; AJPS – Sept 2015; four (or five) rounds of R&R; accepted Feb 2017
10.       PPQ – Jan 2015: R&R July 2015; accepted Sept 2015
9.         PPQ – Dec 2011: rejected April 2012; EJPR – Jan 2015: desk reject; P&P – Feb 2015: R&R July 2015; accepted Nov 2015
8.         ES – Jan 2015: desk reject; G&O – Jan 2015: rejected March 2015; P&P – May 2015: R&R received August 2015; Sept 2015.
7.         JEI – Sept 2013: desk reject; EUP – April 2014: desk reject; JEPP – April 2014: desk reject; EPSR – March 2014: desk reject; JCMS – April 2014: R&R Sept 2014; accepted Nov 2014
6.         (in response to CfP) EEPS – Sept 2014; accepted Feb 2015
5.         (in response to CfP) CIFE – March 2014: accepted July 2014
4.         PRQ – Dec 2010: desk reject; CPS - Dec 2010: desk reject; EEP – Oct 2011: R&R Feb 2012; accepted Nov 2012
3.         JMCQ – Sept 2011: R&R Jan 2012; accepted April 2012;
2.         EJC – Oct 2010: R&R July 2011; accepted Oct 2011
1.         CEJC – July 2011: accepted Jan 2012

Research Travel with an youngster

6/5/2018

A fellow mom whose son was in the same class as mine asked me recently "so what do you guys do when you both have to travel for research in the summer?"
A-ha! The question that every academic parent of a small child wonders about! The answer is a tad more complicated when the parents are in different academic fields, and often, by definition, have to be in different locations at the same time. We have sort of made it work, by either very carefully coordinating and staggering trips, and/or by bringing child along, with the other parent as a caregiver.
- June 2015, we spent a week in Brussels, where my child (not yet 3yo at the time) and spouse hung out with friends and I did fieldwork.
- June 2016, the three of us flew to Germany, and I left the next day for Italy (Standing Group on the EU in Trento). My son and his dad spent a few days in Heidelberg and then continued on to Switzerland, where I met them. I looked after our son for a few days, while his dad attended meetings; then I flew to Brussels for another conference (EPSA), before returning to Geneva.
- August-Sept 2016, my son accompanied me to APSA while his dad was on a trip to London/Oxford. APSA is the one conference in my field that I know about that provides child care.
- June-July 2017 (child was nearly 5yo), we all flew to Switzerland, where we spent a week (me and our son at the beach, his dad- in non-air conditioned offices). We then took the train to Milano where I attended EPSA meetings. Following two weeks visiting family in Bulgaria, we then all flew to Scotland, Edinburgh first then Glasgow, for the Council for European Studies conference. I presented and chatted with colleagues while the rest of the family explored the parks playgrounds. It was there, where a local dad, seeing my kid spin precariously on the merry-go-around asked: Is he yours? He's crazy.
- I am taking a break from conferencing in summer of 2018, which allows my spouse to travel a bit more intensely. This results in me more-or-less solo parenting for 6 weeks. This time includes my first solo transatlantic travel with my son, to first visit his dad, then my family (where I will also look after my niece for two weeks), before his dad joins us for a conference in Sofia.
- Next, we are planning a vacation travel that does not include work or visiting family :-)

Keeping up with others' research

5/1/2018

Between keeping up with your own research agenda, how do you find time to keep up with what others are publishing? I share these strategies with graduate students and colleagues, and it is good to have them listed in one place. Obviously, these strategies do not substitute for a comprehensive bibliography, but they do serve as a nice and easy supplement.

- Set up a Google Scholar alerts for specific topics or individual researchers.
- Join ResearchGate and follow researchers and projects
- Set up alerts from the journals that publish on your topic, and also from the main ones in the discipline.
- Follow journals and researchers on Twitter
- Once a week (or as time allows), go through the alerts/notifications, and download the articles that seem relevant to your current research, and also those that are of potential interest; I also download those articles relevant to classes I teach for when I update the syllabi.
- I use Zotero for keeping track of references, and initially put all downloaded articles in a 'to file' folder, unless the folder already exists. Eventually, I go through these files to assign them to relevant folders.

Gender Stereotypes in Academia

4/29/2018

Much research has come out in recent year on the biases of student evaluations of female instructors. Here are some of the links of this research, which I circulate to my students at the end of each semester. Dr. Rebecca J. Kreitzer has compiled an impressive crowd-sources list of research on gender, sex, and race bias in student evaluations here. Even if you don't have time to read it all, it is worth alerting your students about such biases.

My Peer Review Experience

Research Travel with an youngster

Keeping up with others' research

Gender Stereotypes in Academia

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