publishing book-length manuscripts

[Fred Genesee]

The question of students and graduates publishing dissertation research
in book or journal article form has interesting cross-cultural dimensions.
In psychology, a book publication is not only not recommended
to students and young scholars, it is actively discouraged, on the
grounds (rightly or wrongly) that book-type manuscripts do not
get the thorough reviewing that journal articles do and thus
do not attest so clearly to the author's worth. thus, in psychology
it is usually only among relatively senior scholars that one tends to find
book credits on one's CV.

In contrast, my experience with colleagues in linguistics tells me
that a book publication is the sine qua non of merit and promotion
decisions.

I personally favour journal articles because of my cultural background,
but also because I think they get wider readership -- vive la difference!

Fred
At 10:38 PM 1/28/00 -0500, Virginia Valian wrote:
>To all:
>
>I'd like to see more discussion about publishers and
>about advice to give PhD students about publishing their
>dissertations.
>
>1)  Some publishers, Kluwer among them, charge prices
>that I find unconscionable.  In fact, last week I threw
>a Kluwer catalogue in the wastebasket after gasping at
>a few prices.  And a 2% royalty to authors!  That adds
>insult to injury.  Perhaps there
>are publishing economics that dictate these high prices
>on the part of some publishers,
>such as publishing books that few people are likely to
>buy or read.  That gets to my next point.
>
>2)  Are we doing students a good turn by advising them
>to publish their dissertations as book-length manuscripts?
>Although an occasional dissertation-turned-into-book
>gets read, most do not.  Most students would be better
>off publishing articles.  There is the possible benefit
>for tenure of having a book, but many of these books
>do not look like "real" books and, I believe, are
>discounted.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Virginia Valian
>Professor of Psychology, Hunter College, 695 Park Ave, NYC 10021, USA
>vvvhc at cunyvm.cuny.edu
>http://web.gc.cuny.edu/dept/lingu/valian.htm
>