Our editorial team created this blog as part of our effort to increase the transparency about the journal. The blog is a place to explain policies and procedures and to communicate the norms and expectations that guide our work at the journal. It is also a forum in which we can respond to some of the questions and issues that are asked of us. Our hope is that by addressing some of these issues, we can help demystify the publication process and attract cutting edge research from a wider array of scholars.

One of the most common questions that prospective authors ask is: what makes a good APSR article? It is a question we often ask ourselves. Several of us had experience editing other journals, including subfield and other specialized journals, prior to beginning our work with the APSR, but we have learned a lot over the last year and a half about what our reviewers and our readers expect from work that is submitted to and eventually published in the journal. While we exercise our individual and collective judgments when evaluating articles and reviews, we take our reviewers’ advice seriously and often select reviewers who will help our authors to pitch their work and explain their contributions to engage our general-interest audience. We are also conscious that work published in the APSR is highly visible, often to readers who are not deeply immersed in specific or highly technical subfield debates. At the same time, work published in the APSR may also attract significant scrutiny, both from experts on the subject matter and from scholars interested in the data and approaches our authors employ.

Our experience has confirmed what many of you have probably long suspected: that there is no one simple answer to the question about what makes a good APSR article, especially among an editorial team of twelve. The lack of a simple answer is among the reasons we meet weekly to discuss manuscripts. Nonetheless, some common themes emerged when we surveyed the members of the editorial team. Below we discuss three of these themes. We want to underline that these observations do not represent any kind of formal policy or rubric, but we do believe that they begin to capture some of the elements that can make submitted articles more successful, both with our reviewers as well as with us when we exercise our independent editorial judgment.

Asks Timely/Timeless Questions & Makes Clear Contributions

“I’m looking for an article that addresses an issue that is timely or timeless…or both.”

“I like to see articles that articulate an interesting substantive question in a way that helps us to see things differently, whether it’s through a new way of thinking about a question or articulating and persuasively answering the question in an innovative or more comprehensive way.”

“What is the contribution? Does the article help readers learn something new and/or important about politics or the study of politics?”

One of the most prominent themes emerging from editors’ responses is that they are looking for manuscripts that present and defend a big idea that will excite them and our readers. We want to read – and publish – work that inspires us and our readers to think differently about a question, idea, or event. We want to publish work that asks questions in new ways or that articulates a new answer to an old but important question about politics, policy, or power. In other words, we are looking for articles that do not tinker around the edges of ideas or methods. Instead, they dive into and engage with major debates in political science by asking “big” questions and by offering compelling perspectives, approaches, answers, questions, or ways of framing questions. In the “Notes from the Editor” in the November 2020 issue we stated that the questions political scientists have focused on traditionally are important ones, but they don’t come close to exhausting the range of questions that we must ask in order to truly understand politics. While we will continue to publish important takes on more traditional “timeless” questions, we are also committed to making space for work that challenges disciplinary norms and boundaries, asking questions about political phenomena to which political science has too often given short shrift and using approaches that open up both new and old questions in interesting ways that have been underrepresented in our highly visible general-interest journals.

To accomplish the foregoing goals, a manuscript must also make an original and significant contribution. While contributions can be methodological or empirical, a successful manuscript will also typically make a theoretical contribution. Our reviewers often take particular issue with arguments that are undertheorized, that do not engage in sufficient depth with relevant scholarship, or that either overstate or undersell the theoretical contribution. Making a theoretical contribution does not, as one editor put it in their response, necessarily mean that it posits a brand new theory. Instead, it means that “the manuscript should advance our general understanding of the phenomenon in question.”

We encourage authors to present clearly what they see as the manuscript’s contribution and the significance of its findings. Several editors spoke to the important role of a strong abstract and introduction in conveying a manuscript’s significance and contributions. As one editor put it, “A good article grabs my interest right away in the abstract and in the first few pages. What is the question or problem motivating the paper? What is your answer? Why is it of theoretical and practical importance?” Indeed, we advise some of our authors to make minor or even major changes to their abstracts and introductions near the end of the reviewing process.  A good conclusion is important as well. Part of demonstrating the importance of a project is discussing the broader implications, which leads us to our next theme.

Speaks to a Broad Audience

“Because this is a generalist journal, it is important that even those outside of the particular debate in which you are engaged understand why your question is important and why your argument matters.”

“The best submissions engage with and speak to more than one subfield.”

As one of the flagship journals in political science, the APSR aims to publish work that speaks to a broad audience. One way to do so is by asking those big timely and timeless questions. Another way is by acknowledging and engaging with important ideas, concepts, and findings from across the discipline’s subfields. There is a lot of room for innovation by putting different literatures into conversation with each other, and doing so widens your potential audience. This engagement might come up when scholars are building their theories, but also in their discussion of the work and its broader implications.

Another part of speaking to a broad audience is making sure to explain terms and concepts in ways that make them accessible to readers outside of an author’s immediate subfield, and in ways that enable readers outside their fields to understand the significance of the work. Similarly, scholars should explain and justify their methodology so that even those who may not be familiar with a particular technique will be able to understand what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how to interpret their results. Authors should be clear about the scope and conditions of their study and should demonstrate explicitly how the conclusions are valid based on the evidence presented and consistent with the approach taken. Authors of pieces whose primary contribution is methodological should provide an explanation that teaches other scholars how and why a particular method works, how it may be of use to other scholars, and why its use has the potential to strengthen political science work more broadly. We also find that articles exhibiting a clear understanding of the advantages and limits of their own epistemological standpoints often fare better in the review process.

The journal’s broad audience often includes readers beyond political scientists, including researchers in other fields and engaged non-academic readers. Many successful manuscripts build connections between the approaches and insights offered in political science and those advanced in another field or interdisciplinary area. A strong manuscript could also be one situated directly in interdisciplinary questions or approaches that are likely to resonate within political science.

Is Well Written

Clear and focused writing is so important in getting a paper through any review process. A good article should grab a reader’s interest right away, provide a well-defined and logical structure to guide them, and communicate ideas effectively. If a manuscript is co-authored, make sure that the final draft is consistent in style. Remember that even the most innovative work might be overlooked if the reader has to struggle to get through it.  While path-breaking research may justifiably rely on specialized concepts and approaches, its reach will be greatly enhanced if the authors can provide clear explanations that invite non-specialist readers into the conversation.

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Many different types of articles and a wide variety of approaches and styles can be effective. In providing these insights here and our previously-published and forthcoming posts, we are not trying to prescribe exactly what authors must do. We do, however, want to use our editorship and experience in ways that help people submitting to the APSR to put their work forward on its best possible footing.

Be on the lookout for future Editors Blogs. Our next blog will look more closely at considerations for qualitative and interpretive research.