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Re: [xmca] FW: MCA on Thompson Reuters ISI list
Andy:
I don't really want to start in again on my own rejections. As you say, there are probably perfectly good reasons why my articles are not acceptable, and they can probably be explained in ways that are perfectly civil and reasonable, without any aspersions on my commitment to the scientific enterprise or slights on my personal seriousness.
What I really want to start in on is a serious suggestion that may bring that day closer. If we are going to dedicate a portion of the journal to reviewed articles which meet officially approved standards for pseudo-communicative acts that are universally accepted as evidence of academic seriousness, then we can also dedicate a portion of the journal to unreviewed articles which do not meet those standards and which can, therefore, flout them.
This could be done by, say, merging the editorial with the commentary section. Instead of being an occasional feature, which as Roth pointed out, merely allows people to let off steam and can easily be ignored, this could be made a regular and even central part of the journal. Having the editorial as commentary would not only give the commentary a certain gravitas, it would keep the editors from falling into the trap of trying, redundantly, to write introductions to all the articles in the issue; instead of a kind of meta-abstract, editorializers might have a chance to really start a rumpus that we could continue here on xmca or which could even be made to reflect the rumpuses we have here. If the editors feel uncomfortable in this role, they could invite commentators from xmca to contribute.
I don't think this is a destructive criticism, Andy; on the contrary, all I am suggesting is expanding a feature that already exists in the journal. It's a feature that YOU have made use of (in your response to Roth's celebration of Heidegger and phenomenology) and I have done too (in my response on deconstructionism). Along with book reviews, it is the only way I have been able to contribute to the journal (and despite what others think I do feel I have something to contribute).
Sometimes in my ex-department at Seoul National University of Education we would put our students between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, they had to be be objective and descriptive and realistic about what the teachers and students are doing and can do, given the curriculum, in the classroom, else our research has no generalizability. On the other, they were supposed to make radical suggestions for actually improving teaching.
So in the end students had to offer radical suggestions based on nothing but theoretical prejudices, because of course there was no data to support it. If they tried to get data to suppor it, their studies would, by that very fact, have no external validity; they could not be representative of the general teaching situation which in general is poor. So then if the theoretical prejudices in question agreed with those of the examining professors, our grads would get a pass. If for some reason they did not...well, the grad also got a pass, but the path to a pass could be very long and unpleasant indeed. No wonder most of our work was so dull.
It always seemed to me that the way out ot this dilemma lies actually in the data itself rather than in any radical reconstruction of our degree programme (I suppose, though, that this may only reflect my own Obama-like timidity). We just needed research methods which valorized the ATYPICAL in the data as well as the typical, modal, mean.
In any spoken corpus (and in any written corpus like MCA) there are lots of atypical acts. Some of them don't go anywhere (and I think a fair amount of what I write does fall into that category and can be justly excluded for that reason). But when newness comes into the world, it always, necessarily, appears as a singularity, and only some sense of what is coming next will tell you which singularities are the dragonflies which are harbingers of the typhoon season.
I certainly can't agree that all of the articles I read in MCA are "swimming against the stream". I think that if that WERE true then only articles that were swimming WITH the general cognitivist stream would really be against the MCA stream. Instead, I see a rising tide of mediocrity, and I think this is both causing and caused by the factor of "impact factor".
As with any data base, though, there are significant singularities, and these can very fruitfully be expanded if there is editorial will to expand them. For example, Eugene Matusov's response to the impact factor issue in his commentary "Too Many Notes" was the delightfully appropriate expression: Mazel tov!
David Kellogg
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
--- On Fri, 8/19/11, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
Subject: Re: [xmca] FW: MCA on Thompson Reuters ISI list
To: "Culture ActivityeXtended Mind" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Friday, August 19, 2011, 6:38 PM
David,
The ISI listing was a process started in Michael Roth's tenure. While I personally don't have any strong feeling about the listing, I know that for a certain section of our valued community of authors it is important as it helps their academic career. I am happy that they will be happy that's all. But it certainly never influences either the editors or our reviewers in their assessment of articles.
While you make a generalisation whose truth is undeniable, I cannot accept that MCA reviewers can be tarred with such a brush. All of us are swimming against the stream, that is a fact.
Andy
David Kellogg wrote:
> I don't really see how this is GOOD news, Andy. From my point of view, it builds the wall around MCA even higher, and makes it even less likely that I will ever be able to publish there.
> But I HAVE published in highly ranked impact factor journals, and I'm a reviewer for half a dozen of them, including several on the Thompson Reuters ISI list. I can tell you this: the vast majority of articles that pass through our review process and into our pages are what I would call pseudo-communicative acts.
> That is, they are designed to tell you things that you already know in such a way that you will recognize at a glance their versimilitude and erudition as a copy of your own. They are probably the biggest single reason for stagnation and attrition in professional knowledge, and if that is the kind of impact we are talking about, I rather hope our impact factor is as low as possible.
> I think this makes it more urgent than ever that the editors, and above all the reviewers, of MCA open their pages to genuinely communicative acts, of the sort xmca is made of, even if these are couched in terms that might seem glippant or flib to reviewers. I don't think we can measure the commitment of our writers to a scientific vision by lexical choice and style alone.
> If this isn't workable, perhaps we could greatly expand the "Commentary" section? Or how about a few cutting edge editorials?
> David Kellogg
> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
>
>
> --- On *Fri, 8/19/11, Andy Blunden /<ablunden@mira.net>/* wrote:
>
>
> From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> Subject: Re: [xmca] FW: MCA on Thompson Reuters ISI list
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Friday, August 19, 2011, 4:50 AM
>
> I am one of the editors, Arthur, and we are learning all this from
> you! :)
> andy
>
> Bakker, A. (Arthur) wrote:
> > No, sorry, I don't. The Publisher writes: "next year MCA will
> receive its first ISI number and rank."
> >
> > I know of other journals (e.g., Educational Research Review)
> that between the announcement of acceptance until citation reports
> there can be a considerable time lag (more than a year). But I
> have also heard impact factors of journals that were not yet on
> the ISI list (e.g., Educational Studies in Mathematics), so the
> publisher then has computed such figures themselves.
> >
> > Anybody else? Editors of MCA?
> >
> > Arthur
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
> <http://us.mc1225.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
> [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
> <http://us.mc1225.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>]
> On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
> > Sent: vrijdag 19 augustus 2011 11:50
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] FW: MCA on Thompson Reuters ISI list
> >
> > Arthur,
> > I found (today) MIND CULTURE AND ACTIVITY listed as a journal
> covered by
> > the Web of Science, Social Science Index, but I still could not
> find an
> > index, Impact Factor, or such like. Do you have any idea on how
> TR-ISI
> > rated MCA?
> >
> > Andy Blunden
> >
> > Bakker, A. (Arthur) wrote:
> > >> Good news, confirmed by the publisher: MCA is now included in
> Thompson Reuters' Social Sciences Citation index (SSCI)
> >>
> >> Arthur
> >>
> >> My name is Jacob Harte, Editorial Assistant for Mind, Culture
> and Activity. I'd like to thank you for your interest and support
> for MCA.
> >>
> >> Recently I was forwarded your query and I'm proud to inform you
> that MCA is now included in Thompson Reuters' Social Sciences
> Citation index and next year will receive its first ISI number and
> rank.
> >>
> >> Should you have any further questions please feel free to
> contact me directly.
> >>
> >> Kindly,
> >> Jacob
> >>
> >> Jacob Harte
> >> Editorial Assistant
> >> Education, Arts & Humanities
> >> Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
> >> 325 Chestnut St, Suite 800
> >> Philadelphia, PA 19106
> >> Phone: (215) 625-8900 ext. 379
> >> Fax: (215) 625-2940
> >> Email: jacob.harte@taylorandfrancis.com
> <http://us.mc1225.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=jacob.harte@taylorandfrancis.com><mailto:jacob.harte@taylorandfrancis.com
> <http://us.mc1225.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=jacob.harte@taylorandfrancis.com>>
> >>
> >>
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-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Joint Editor MCA: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g932564744
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857
MIA: http://www.marxists.org
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