- Most importantly, make sure we’re the right journal for your paper (for example, we are not the British Journal for Political Science!).
- We will not consider more than one paper at a time by the same author(s). We will consider co-authored papers with at least one author who doesn’t already have a paper under review with us.
- Please keep in mind that we apply a much higher bar for the acceptance of discussion notes compared to fully fledged articles (since notes are usually small interventions and we want to save our pages for substantial, novel contributions).
- Do not contact any of us directly about your paper. To do so would reveal your identity and we operate a triple anonymous review process. If your query concerns the suitability of your paper for the BJPS, simply submit it. If it is not appropriate, you’ll usually find out within a fortnight.
- You may deposit your paper in a preprint archive or otherwise make it publicly available prior to submission. However, this will make it harder to us to find qualified people to review your paper who are unfamiliar with your identity as author(s), and thus will slow down the peer review process, Using a different title and a paraphrased abstract for your BJPS submission can help here.
- If your paper is accepted, it will not appear in print for a long time. We will make your final draft available online within a few weeks, and this will generate a DOI. For most purposes—hiring committees, funding applications, and so on—your paper will count as published.1Why the delay? There has been a substantial increase in the number of submissions we have received in recent years. At the same time, our acceptance rate has remained fairly stable. Thus, there are many more papers that need to be carefully guided through the production process. There are two ways to deal with this increase: (1) Impose a substantial pause on accepting new papers. This option would particularly harm early-career philosophers of science, who have a limited number of suitable venues for their work and can’t afford to wait as long as later-career folks. (2) Substantially increase the cost of the journal to cover the labour costs involved in publishing more pages per year. This option would particularly harm low-income readers and institutions. Because a delay in production is closer to an inconvenience than a harm, we’ve chosen this path.
- We follow both the British Philosophical Association/Society for Women in Philosophy (UK) Good Practice Scheme, and the Barcelona Principles for a Globally Inclusive Philosophy.
We only accept papers via our online submission system.
Papers that fail to meet the following criteria will be returned to the author(s):
- We have a non-negotiable 24-page limit. This includes footnotes but does not include title, abstract, or reference list.
- Your paper should be written in Times New Roman, 12pt, 1.5 line spacing, and 1 inch margins.
- Papers must be fully anonymized. This means you should refer to your own work as though it as written by someone else, and remove all acknowledgements and even the mention of all acknowledgements (no ‘Thanks to X for pressing me on this point’ and no blank acknowledgements section, for example). For more on this, read Deputy Editor Elizabeth Hannon’s How to Anonymize Your Paper.
- We accept word or pdf files. (LaTeX aficionados: no need to upload .tex files at this stage)
- Do not forget to include the title and abstract on the first page of your paper.
- Citation style should be consistent and intelligible (the editors encourage authors to use an article recently published in BJPS or in any reputable philosophy journal as a model).
Once a paper arrives at the editorial office, it’s checked to ensure it is adequately anonymized and does not exceed the page limit.
The Chief Editors independently read and evaluate every paper sent to the journal. These papers are then discussed at the fortnightly editorial meeting. At this point, papers are either desk rejected or passed along to an Associate Editor.
Associate Editors may recommend desk rejection at this point. If not, their job is to seek out (a minimum of) two referees. At this point, your paper will be marked as ‘awaiting referee assignment’ in the online submission system, and will remain so until all referees have been secured.
Once the full complement of referees is in place, your paper is marked ‘awaiting referee scores’ in the online system. (Note that if a referee later pulls out or we need to recruit a third referee, your paper may revert to being marked as ‘awaiting referee assignment’.)
When all referee reports are returned, Associate Editors write their recommendations to the Chief Editors, based on their reading of the reports and the paper itself.
At this point, your paper appears once more on the agenda for the fortnightly editorial meeting. The Chief Editors independently evaluate the Associate Editor’s recommendation, along with the referee reports. At the meeting itself, your paper is discussed. This will usually result in a decision, but sometimes the Chief Editors will request that the Associate Editor find another referee (because one or other referee report is judged inadequate, for example).
The BJPS peer-review process
We desk reject a lot of papers and do so without reports. This means you’ll likely receive notification of a desk rejection after fourteen days or so (though this may take somewhat longer, for example, over the Christmas break).
Referees agree to return their reports to us within four weeks, but we have no power to enforce this. We regularly chase referees when they are late—our system does not allow us to forget about your paper and we are working behind the scenes to get reports back as soon as possible (so emailing us about your paper won’t change anything).
See our latest report on the average time it takes to get a decision.
No matter how good our average, there are always outliers. There are a number of reasons why your paper isn’t moving through the process as fast as some others.
We rule over our Associate Editors with an iron fist, and the Chief Editors meet fortnightly, so delays as a result of matters internal to the journal are rare (Christmas breaks, illness, and so on aside) . Where they do occur due to internal matters, this is usually because after reading the two referee reports, we decide a third referee is necessary.
But the vast majority of delays stem from two sources. The first is difficulty securing referees. This can take weeks, or even months: Invite two people, await response. If the invite is declined, invite a new person. If the invite is ignored, wait seven days—giving referees anything less than five working days days receives pushback from those who want time to consider the invite—then invite someone else. Repeat perhaps twenty (and occasionally more) times.
The second major cause of delay results from referees not meeting the deadline for their reports. We ask referees to commit to returning their reports within four weeks, but we can do nothing to enforce this. We do regularly chase referees when they are late—our system does not allow us to forget about your paper and we are always working behind the scenes to get reports back as soon as possible (so emailing us about your paper won’t speed things up).
Your question not answered here? Let us know.
Notes
- 1Why the delay? There has been a substantial increase in the number of submissions we have received in recent years. At the same time, our acceptance rate has remained fairly stable. Thus, there are many more papers that need to be carefully guided through the production process. There are two ways to deal with this increase: (1) Impose a substantial pause on accepting new papers. This option would particularly harm early-career philosophers of science, who have a limited number of suitable venues for their work and can’t afford to wait as long as later-career folks. (2) Substantially increase the cost of the journal to cover the labour costs involved in publishing more pages per year. This option would particularly harm low-income readers and institutions. Because a delay in production is closer to an inconvenience than a harm, we’ve chosen this path.