stand up is bit by bit destroyed. Getting to anything but a com-
monplace explanation turns out to be overwhelmingly more
complex than the author expected. The funded or designated
period for research ends inconclusively and the author is pro-
foundly depressed, and goes back to other things – teaching,
administration, ‘distracter’ research. But after a while it is clear
that this project remains the best bet for publication amongst
the possible materials that the author has available. In time she
gradually begins to see a couple of different ways for presenting
things in a better light. After a lot more effort and false starts she
manages to reconstruct something vaguely in the form of the
necessary research myth and create a paper which can claim a
little value-added, even if this is partly achieved by judiciously
exaggerating or misrepresenting a previous viewpoint. After giv-
ing the paper to a sceptical audience at a professional conference
and making a lot of revisions in its aftermath, the author selects
a journal and sends the paper off.
After a long pause the editor writes back rejecting the paper
outright and enclosing two or three comments from anony-
mous referees which make strong and devastating criticisms, in
the process judiciously exaggerating or misrepresenting what
the author is trying to do. The author is again a bit depressed
at this reception. But after a while she picks up the piece again,
tones it down, reworks it to avoid the misinterpretations of the
previous referees, adds more references to deflect possible criti-
cisms, and submits it to another less good journal, lower down
the profession’s ‘pecking order’ of academic journals. After a
further long pause the editor writes back grudgingly conceding
that perhaps they might publish it, but only if the author
cuts the length by a quarter and makes revisions to accommo-
date all the comments of two more anonymous referees which
are attached. The author struggles to regard this as a success,
especially when it becomes apparent that the two referees want
contradictory things and that the editor has opted out of
explaining how they can be reconciled. Eventually though the
author tones down anything that obviously annoyed either
referee and obfuscates any other points that seem controversial.
She achieves the cuts asked for by radically underexplaining the
methods and the evidence or data findings, making them more
difficult and inaccessible. The article is resubmitted, the editor
PUBLISHING YOUR RESEARCH◆ 243