Overview of the review and publication process

The expected steps and timelines from submission to publication

Initial evaluation from journal editors

• Editors will evaluate an article on its coherence, presentation and readability, novelty, potential for impact, and if it fits into the specific journal. At this stage, editors may also tap into their team of associate editors and/or an editorial board to provide input.

• TAPA’s goal: to help authors conceive pieces that make an impact within their specific fields but are also accessible and of interest to the journal’s broad readership.

• Note from CP: the name “Classical Philology” doesn’t encompass the range of what they publish. CP invites submissions pertaining to languages, literatures, history, art, philosophy, social life, material culture, religion, and reception of ancient Greece and Rome.

• Possible outcomes from this initial evaluation include:

• Desk reject: the paper doesn’t meet the bar for substantive intervention or it doesn’t have a coherent argument.

• Send back: editors feel that the author would benefit from refinement and that they won’t get much use out of the peer-reviewed process as the article currently stands.

• Advance to peer-review: editors send the article out to peer reviewers in a double-anonymous process. This means that readers don’t know the identity of the author and vice versa. 

• Each journal has its own perspective on the initial evaluation process. 

• TAPA’s approach: having such a robust system at the beginning of the publication process will ensure that a fewer number of articles will be rejected once they get to the peer-review stage.

• CP’s approach: perhaps more articles are sent out for peer-review than at TAPA, because the goal is for authors, especially early-career scholars, to gain advice early on and learn a lot going through the process.

The peer-review process

• The double-anonymous aspect of the peer-review process is ensured at CP by the Editorial Manager System and a graduate student assistant at the University of Chicago. TAPA’s editor and their team will check article submissions to ensure anonymity manually. They will also ask reviewers to disclose if they can identify the author by the initial description.

• Editors are still hands-on during the peer-review stage to ensure that both the author and readers are addressing the right things for eventual publication in the journal.

• Full-length articles will often have two reviewers, whereas shorter notes will have one.

• After the reviewer reports are submitted, editors and their team will look over them so that they can communicate to the author the general direction for revision or so that they can clarify the reviewer’s assessment of the article. 

• Advice to reviewers: if you’re not completely bought into the submission, it’s more helpful to reject (and explain why!) than to be polite and unclear in your assessment. 

Revising and resubmitting

• Authors may be asked to revise their article based on the reviewer reports and resubmit (for TAPA, this occurs approximately 95% of the time). If you are asked to do this, view it as a promising step towards publication!

• Reviewers could agree to reading the article as early as a week from being requested, but it can also take longer.

• Editors will usually send your resubmission to the original readers. If suggestions are minimal, then perhaps they will only tap in one of the original readers. If suggestions are substantial, then they might tap in one of the original readers and invite a new reviewer.

• Sometimes a reviewer may not agree to re-read the article, in which case, another one is requested.

Final changes

• Even once your article has been approved after resubmission, there are still minor revisions to make.

• At this stage, the copy editor will take over to clarify on stylistic guidelines.

• You will also be asked to sign a contract at this stage. Before this contract is signed, know that you are within your rights to pull the article from the journal should you have a valid reason to do so.

Approximate timelines

• TAPA:

• TAPA publishes 2 times a year, and there was no backlog at the time of the WCC event.

• Initial response after evaluation: 2-3 weeks from submission

• Peer-review process: 12 weeks from acceptance

• Publication: 1 year from acceptance

• Classical Philology:

• CP publishes 4 times a year, and there was no backlog at the time of the WCC event.

• Initial response after evaluation: 2-3 weeks from submission

• Peer-review process: 10-12 weeks from acceptance

• Publication: 9-12 months from acceptance

• Timelines vary. Many factors can cause delays, including special issues that are inserted into the journal publication schedule.

• It’s fine to check in. You are welcome to follow up with editors about the status of your submission if a few months have gone by without a word. Ideally, you will not have to pursue editors for more than that amount of time! With any professional correspondence, be polite and respectful in your email, even if you feel frustrated with the delay.

• Ask the question. If you have specific questions you want to ask the editor(s) and you feel that this information is holding you back from submitting or progressing in your project, you should get those answered! We’re all colleagues here!

When to submit an article

When is an article ready to be submitted?

Distinguishing an article from a seminar paper or dissertation chapter

• There are fundamental differences between an article, a seminar paper, and a dissertation chapter. Because of this, the quality of research won’t always carry the piece through towards publication.

• An article must make an intervention on the existing scholarship. It should change the way scholars approach your topic. Dissertation chapters usually demonstrate thorough research, and great dissertation chapters will advance knowledge, but they might not have the same surgical intent in intervening in scholarly debate.

Setting a personal deadline

• When wondering whether or not an article is ready for submission, the battle is often with yourself! Sometimes it’s good to just set a deadline, and when it arrives, submit your article. This, of course, doesn’t always work, but try it out and see what happens!

Addressing the “rule of 80%”

• Some have advised first-time authors to go by the “rule of 80%”, which means that you should submit when your article is 80% completed. 

• This is not really endorsed by the editors of CP and TAPA. With that said, if the “rule of 80%” is a mindset issue, take the plunge! “We get so many more submissions from men than from women [and non-binary scholars].” (Sarah)

• Even if your piece doesn’t get accepted, you might walk away with good feedback and suggestions that will help you towards getting it published. Get out there and get into the mix!

Using an article as a jumping off point towards a second book

• Oftentimes, articles can be a good way to build a case for a second book project, either as a starting point or as part of that book. Publishing an article can also allow you to get funding for the second project.

• Note that 1-2 parts of a book can have been previously published in a journal, but not vice versa. This is, of course, a conversation that needs to be had between you and your book publisher.

• CP doesn’t publish work that has already been published, and this includes pre-published works on Academia. Use your judgment on how much of your research you want to disclose on this site.

• On rare occasions, TAPA has received articles that seem too similar to the author’s upcoming book project. In this case, they will wait until the book comes out to make an informed evaluation on the article.

• When in doubt, talk to your mentors!

Building an article from a conference paper or footnote

• It is totally fine to revise a conference paper for submission as an article! In fact, conference papers should be a stepping stone towards an article. They’re a great way to present your initial research idea to an audience of peers and receive constructive questions and feedback.

• Another great way to build an article is to take an unwieldy footnote from your dissertation or other work. The right footnote would be a related but different topic that you found interesting, zeroed in on, but you felt didn’t quite fit into your larger piece. 

• With that said, do not plagiarize yourself by taking big chunks from the original text itself.

Tips on choosing a journal

• Read articles from that specific journal to see if yours would be a good fit.

• Check your own bibliography! If there are a lot of articles related to your topic that have been published recently from a specific journal, then that’s a great signal that this journal might align with your work and research interests.

• CP and TAPA do not send out invitations for submissions. A kind of exception is for special issues, which are usually tied to an event. TAPA offers open events at the annual meeting of the Society for Classical Studies, where folks can talk about their projects. Editors will advise on whether or not your project may be a good fit for the journal, but this conversation does not lead to a higher success rate than a cold submission. “Get out there! You don’t need to be invited!” (Irene)

• The question of journal ‘ratings’ comes up a lot. For the humanities, at least in the United States, there isn’t a specific rating system, but do make sure that you’re submitting to a journal that is peer-reviewed and published by colleagues in your field. Also, ask your mentors and peer mentors about their thoughts!

How to submit an article

Advice on submission platforms, word count, and style

TAPA

• TAPA’s website has specific instructions for journal authors.

• Submissions are made to Scholastica.

• TAPA also doesn’t publish notes, only full-length articles.

• There is no word limit on articles, but be mindful that the length of your piece should correspond to its impact. A longer article will come with a higher expectation that all the space occupied is necessary for delivering your arguments.

Classical Philology

• CP’s website and the Classics @ UChicago page have stylistic instructions for journal authors.

• Sarah Nooter has also written an FAQ for authors considering submitting to CP.

• Submissions are made on Editorial Manager.

• Manuscripts should not be more than 45 pages. In general, articles should cap at approximately 11 000 words, notes at 6 000 words.

General tips

• Do not submit the same article to multiple journals at the same time. Many people are devoting time and energy into facilitating that submission towards publication. With that said, you are welcome to resubmit your article to another journal if it has been rejected from the initial one.

• Format your article in accordance with your intended journal’s stylistic guidelines. Otherwise, editors might send it back for reformatting. Here, the “rule of 80%” might apply well: your formatting doesn’t need to be perfect, and a good faith effort is appreciated!

Advice to reviewers

Navigating the publication process from the other side

Choosing a reviewer

• The intention of great editors is to find a team of reviewers that will facilitate your growth in productive and cohesive ways. Editors will often tap into their editorial board or associate editors (as is the case in CP) for suggestions on who to choose as a reviewer. They will often look at the article’s bibliography for a general sense of who might be a good fit (but with whom the author doesn’t engage too closely or opposingly) and/or do some research on folks in the specific field of the article.

• Editors will also aim for a variety of perspectives in their reviewers. Some considerations include: reviewers from different career stages, readers who they think might be sympathetic or resistant to an article’s arguments (in a way that can challenge them constructively), and a gender balance.

• Editors are not likely to invite a reviewer who has not yet published nor a graduate student even if they have published in the past. The rationale behind the latter is that reviewing is a responsibility and service to the field, and it’s important to protect graduate students’ time and labor.

General advice on writing reviewer reports

• Guidelines will generally be sent to reviewers, and editors will often pose guiding questions pertaining to the article that they would like the reviewer to address.

• The general format of a reviewer report may look like this:

• A paragraph of takeaways and an assessment of whether you accept or reject the article for publication.

• A paragraph or two on the reasoning behind your assessment, and what you think needs work and why.

• A section on detailed comments (e.g., “on p. 2, X needs to be addressed”)

• In the above or separate section, a recommendation of secondary literature for the author.

• Note that you aren’t expected to write a lengthy report, nor do you need to cover every single detail in your report.

• Look back at the reviews you received in your article or book submissions. Emulate the types of comments you found helpful and do better than the ones that weren’t constructive.

• Approach reviewing with the mindset that you’re contributing to the development of scholars and scholarship that are of high quality and impact. Treat authors as if they’re your own students, especially in the tone that you use in your report. Be clear in your intention that you are all in a process of growing together as opposed to gate-keeping access to someone’s arguments from a wider public.

Publishing as an early-career scholar

Finding the right balance for future progression

Entering the job market

• It can always be helpful to publish one article while you are ABD (all but dissertation), and that is something to discuss with your supervisor or other academic mentors. The reasoning behind this is, when departments are hiring, they are considering candidates that they know can get tenure. If you show that you’re productive, then that’s a good sign, but it’s important to recognize that 1) departments are also looking for candidates who have or are near to having a complete dissertation, and 2) productivity can take different forms outside of publishing articles.

• Regarding publishing on topics outside of your dissertation research, it’s not a bad idea to show that you have more than one arrow in your quiver. This signals breadth and that your interests are open.

• A last thing to consider is that articles can take a long time to appear, so getting started with the process early can be a good idea if you’re thinking about entering the job market soon!

Tenure-track faculty

• For tenure-track faculty, the appropriate rate of articles published per year is highly dependent on your institution. It’s recommended that you speak to your academic mentors in your institution for a general sense of your research expectations (sometimes departments will not provide an explicit number of articles, chapters in volumes, etc.). 

• The appropriate number of articles can also depend on whether your tenure dossier includes a book or other pieces of research. Your annual review is a great opportunity to get a better sense of where you stand in your progress towards tenure.

• One thing to consider is that peer-reviewed journal articles are often more highly regarded than chapters in volumes or conference proceedings, with the exception of highly-anticipated volumes by an esteemed publisher.  

• With all this said, navigate the tenure track with a focus on quality, impact, and what makes sense to you - that is, who you are as a scholar and how you want to develop your scholarship.

As a field, we can be more intentional in creating opportunities for graduate students and early-career scholars to find mentors or rekindle mentoring relationships. Let’s be more strategic in supporting folks entering the field and making publishing an accessible and rewarding process.