Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC BY-SA 3.0. New York Public Library research room (via Wikimedia Commons)
I earned my PhD in 2015. While I have since been able to secure some temporary academic positions, last year I struck out on the philosophy job market. Now I’m a full-time mom and part-time independent scholar. I continue my research in philosophy whenever I can, usually at night when my son is asleep. I’ve had four articles accepted since I was last affiliated with an academic institution, in 2019, so I am still contributing to the discipline.
As an independent scholar, I frequently run into a big problem: journal paywalls. Here’s a typical scenario: I come across a paper with a title and abstract that seem relevant to what I’m working on and so want to read the full paper to learn more. Because I’m not affiliated with an institution that subscribes to the journal, I need to pay the exorbitant journal fees myself if I want to access the article. For example, one prestigious journal charges $39.95 for a pdf of a single article or $199 for a one-year subscription.
Fortunately there is an entirely legal way to get access to journal articles without paying any fees: downloading them from online repositories like PhilArchive and PhilSci-Archive or from authors’ personal websites. It’s possible to legally obtain papers in this way because most journals allow authors to self-archive their accepted manuscripts—i.e., make them freely available online, subject to certain conditions. An accepted manuscript (AM) is a peer reviewed manuscript accepted by a journal that has not yet been copyedited or typeset in the journal’s style. An AM is not the same as the published paper, which is copyedited and typeset and which most journals do not allow you to self-archive.
While all of the top-20 generalist philosophy journals allow self-archiving of AMs in some form or another, around 33 percent of philosophers do not always self-archive, according to an online poll I conducted. This result is a shame; philosophers should self-archive their AMs. I want to highlight two reasons in particular for doing so, as well as offering some practical advice about self-archiving.
First, self-archiving your AMs is good for philosophy. It makes it possible for researchers without journal subscriptions to access your work quickly and easily, which in turn helps them to make their own contributions to the field. For example, if there’s a paywalled article that I’m interested in, I’ll search for it in online repositories or check out the author’s website. If a self-archived AM is available, I can download it instantly and start reading and making connections with my own work. If no self-archived AM is available, then I email the author to see if they are willing to send me a copy. Sometimes the author is kind enough to send me their paper quickly, but other times my email goes unanswered and I never get to read the paper. This can slow down my progress on a project; I often need to email multiple philosophers who haven’t self-archived their papers. Some might say that the solution to this problem is to use Sci-Hub, but Sci-Hub distributes journal articles illegally and is allegedly involved in cybercrimes.
Second, self-archiving your AMs is good for you. It enables more people to engage with and cite your work and so can help you become well-known in your field. For example, if your paper’s title and abstract sound relevant to my work and I’m able to download your self-archived AM, then I can read it in full and potentially discuss your arguments in detail in my own paper. If you haven’t self-archived your AM, I might instead decide to discuss and cite ideas from a different paper that has been self-archived. Studies confirm that papers that are self-archived can have a significant boost in citations compared with papers that are not.
So how do you go about self-archiving your AMs? Unfortunately, different journals have different rules, which adds confusion. Usually you can self-archive your AMs in online repositories such as PhilArchive and PhilSci-Archive or on your personal website, but some publications only allow you to do so 24 months after publication. Be careful about self-archiving on social networking sites such as Academia.edu or ResearchGate, since these are commercial sites and not all journals allow you to upload your AMs there. You’ll also usually need to add a statement to your AM acknowledging the publisher’s copyright and including a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) link to the final published version. To find out exactly what you can and can’t do, you’ll need to check the policies of your particular journal, which can be found in your copyright transfer agreement. You can also search SHERPA-RoMEO for an easily digestible summary of your journal’s policies.
Given the dismal state of the philosophy job market, which will surely get worse due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout, I expect there will be many more unaffiliated philosophers in the future. Taking the time and effort to self-archive your AMs will make it easier for those philosophers, and anyone without a journal subscription, to get access to your research and make their own contributions to the field, as well as ensuring your work gets the engagement it deserves.
Rebecca Lea Morris
Rebecca Lea Morris is an independent scholar based in Minneapolis. Her research interests focus on the history and philosophy of mathematics.
