Welcome to juniorprof

Seven ways to figure out whether you're a junior prof:

1. You spend a lot of time avoiding committee meetings
2. You've hidden from a student by diving under the desk
3. Achieving a personal life is on your list of things To Do
4. You still haven't given up on the idea of Free Food
5. Your real expertise lies in exploring the local happy hour scene
6. You're always working on your "Book"
7. You spend more than 8 hours a day contemplating alternate career plans

Saturday, July 11, 2009

So Wrong

Regularity of Publishing

Given that I have at least a month before the ms reviews arrive, I am attempting to complete an article to ensure that I have checked the tenure box entitled "regularity of publishing." But my list of "possible" articles have almost reached the length of an article. I am considering putting the list on a dartboard and employing some elementary physics to make the Choice. I am also wondering if there might not be an intellectual version of Activia for academics.

What does "regularity of publishing" mean, anyway? Is it better to produce a series of not-so-great publications for lesser journals or a few well placed exemplar articles? Wouldn't our fields be better off if we did the latter? Do people in the higher up recognize that some fields are based on books, which considerably reduce article output? Do they recognize that the average 4-6 week turnaround of a scientific paper vastly differs from the 1-2 year turnaround of a social science/humanities essay (a turnaround that often gets longer the better the journal)?