http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2007/03/01/sociology-journals-and-the-geometry-of-the-resource-space/

My general experience is that you are correct. AJS/ASR are considered of similar quality by top programs, a bit above SF. But as one esteemed senior colleague once said ” and maaaaybe Social Forces.” I think what he was trying to communicate was that with AJS/ASR you get the presumption of quality. For SF, you’d have to make an argument for it, but it’s not totally crazy.

Don’t forget Sociology Compass for short review pieces. Not as comprehensive or authoritative as the Annual Reviews for sure, but they publish often and have many good people writing for them.

I fully support the “read, read, read” notion. I found that to be the point when I really started to “step up my game,” if you will. One of the other things that my diss chair made me go through for several months is rewriting and editing of some of my work, focusing on the structure of my writing. Despite some of the cited critiques, Strunk and White’s “Elements of Style” was helpful. “Revising Prose” was also helpful since many of academics like to see how long they can stretch a sentence. Moreover, both helped with those word length restrictions for the journal articles. The “writing bootcamp” gave me more of an ability to change between “dissertation writing” and “article writing.”

“Teppo is referring to a set of tips that Ezra Z. posted to his website about how to write articles. Quoting again from Ezra’s very helpful tips: “Never write literature reviews. The only reason anyone cares about a literature is because it is helpful in clarifying puzzles in the world. So start with the puzzle.”

This is a nice piece of advice and one that I wish I could integrate better in my own work.”

So…how do you write a paper that doesn’t have an exhaustive lit review yet still shows mastery of the “theoretical and topical terrain”. If the argument is good, and the empirics are solid, why isn’t that good enough? I’m not trying to pick a fight or anything, but am genuinely curious what you have to say in light of these two ostensively contradictory views.

I couldn’t agree more. Learning by reading is the backbone of any grad student’s education. When grad students ask me what the best way is to learn how to write journal articles, my answer has been, ‘read, read, and read.’ Most students don’t read enough. They think they’re reading a lot because they’re doing all of the reading required of them in their graduate courses, but this is just the minimum amount of reading you should be doing. You need to read more than you think you should.

Academics have a certain style that can only be learned through absorption. Part of good writing is figuring out how to tell a theoretical story logically and in an interesting enough way that it will capture reviewers’ attention. Mimicry of others’ styles is a great way to get that first article written and out to the editor.

Another reason it’s important to read a lot is because it’s the only way you’re going to pick up on the vast amount of literature that you should know just to be able to engage readers in intelligent conversations. As a reviewer, I can’t tell you how irritating it is when someone presents a fairly good argument and evidence but the paper is written with little comprehension of the theoretical and topical terrain. Citing Weber (or Dimaggio and Powell) is not enough to show your mastery of an area. The only way you can develop nuanced arguments is if you have a comprehensive understanding of the literature and you can’t get that unless you read a lot.

Overall, these publications rarely get you any credit – and rightfully so. A 500 word comment on another person’s book is not exactly worthy of promotion or hiring. On the other hand, chapters and reviews can do other things – they can introduce ideas and once in a while, they hit big. So the primary reason to do these sorts of publications is not career advancement. It’s to push an intellectual agenda and raise issues you think are very important.

Quick question:

What is the value of publishing book reviews, book chapters, etc?

I think the closest thing is the annual review of sociology.

@ Jason

I say submit it, especially if you’re going into academia, but even if you aren’t.

I want to know would it be worth taking up the professors offer and turning the dissertation into a journal worthy article, especially if I am now in another field? I mean it is always a good thing to get your name out but is it worth the time and trouble of doing so, if I am going to be working in another field?

That said, the review process itself probably deserves its own post – what to do when the reviews conflict and the editor doesn’t really clarify; when to make the reviewers’ requested changes and when to politely point out he/she is out of line. Also, the review process can help an inexperienced student overcome paralyzing perfectionism. In my opinion, grad students should not be afraid to “pull the trigger” on a paper and submit it for review even if it isn’t “perfect”. I probably overly revised some papers as a grad student thinking they were never good enough. As long as you’re sure the paper won’t get rejected outright (and you can have your advisor help you with that), having a paper fall into that middle ground of “accepted with revisions” or even “revise and resubmit” can, in fact, be a good place for a graduate student to be. At that point (if the editor is good) it is very clear what needs to be done to get the paper published, and you won’t waste more time doing endless revisions trying to write the “perfect” paper.

Then submit it to a top journal.

Also, on the team approach — I think that you have said this elsewhere, but you should have very clear roles outlined at the beginning of a project so that everyone has the same expectations and there are no surprises down the road.

So, though it’s basically already in your post, I’d emphasize: you should continously be framing your results for journal publication.