What Is the Role of Graduate Student Journals in the Publish-or-Perish Academy? Three Lessons from Three Editors-in-Chief

Abstract

To be prepared to face the “publish-or-perish” reality of contemporary academia, early career scholars must develop capacity and confidence. While the publication practices of International Relations have received increasing attention in the last 20 years, concern remains around the preparedness of graduate students to participate confidently and competently in the publication process. As three former Editors-in-Chief of a graduate student journal, we suggest that student-run journals can play an important role in professionalization during graduate school. We then reflect on our journal’s context as well as on reforms initiated to improve the policies and practices during our editorial tenure. Bringing our experiences to bear on previous findings in the literature, we outline three key lessons that can help support successful journals at other institutions. First, given the high turnover rate, starting early is key to maintain early enthusiasm and flatten intensity spikes. Second, editors must remain mindful of what we call the ‘workload paradox’—or how the comparatively low workload of some graduate journals can make it harder to manage an editorial team. Finally, we argue that graduate student journals should be understood as places of learning and primarily valued as professionalization and pedagogical spaces.