Student publishing in peer reviewed journals: Evidence from the International Political Science Review

Abstract

Publishing in peer‐reviewed journals has become an essential requirement for PhD students wishing to pursue a career in academia. Yet, there are few studies of student publishing and little discussion of norms around attribution of authorship for student research collaborators. (1) How often do students feature as submitters and authors in political science journals? (2) In what format (i.e., solo author, co‐author, multiple authors) do students normally submit and publish? (3) Are there gender differences in student submission and publication rates between male and female students? This article uses 2 years of data from the International Political Science Review (IPSR; i.e., 2019 and 2020) to answer these questions. Mainly using cross‐tabulations, we found that just one in eight submitting authors was a student (i.e., undergraduate and postgraduate). In terms of acceptance rates, students had generally lower acceptance rates than faculty. Yet, there were also important differences within the student body. As expected PhD students were more successful than undergraduate and masters' students, and in line with general disciplinary publishing patterns, female PhD students had a higher publication success rate than their male colleagues.