======= Date Modified 18 00 2010 22:00:33 =======
Hello all you wonderfully arty humanities types.

I'm hoping you can clear something up for me: is publishing articles in prestigious journals more valuable to our careers than publishing prestigious book chapters? Or do you think they hold equal gravitas? I'm trying to fathom which would be the best use of my efforts.

Many thanks in advance.

Hi there Eska, am not humanities but my field being media does link with loads doing discourse analysis, film, literature etc...

I think the following order has been mentioned to us

1. Top journal article
2. Book chapter in a collection with a grand name as editor
3. Good journal article
4. Book chapter in a volume by peer-review (mention in CV if peer reviewed) and not by invitation
5. Middle range journal article

Last two options of low range journal articles and one of those many bok chapters in any book that's being put together and your article is invited - both these hold little value I am told

but even then, apparently anything that's peer reviewed still ranks higher...

Our ex HoD even told us to keep in mind who the editor is - so, having a book chapter in a volume edited by yur supervisor (even if a great name) is of lesser value than say publishing in the top notch journals of our field.

Given that, a caveat to add: disciplines have entirley differnt citation cultures, and this RAE, apparently in my uni there was big thing about how anthro differs from economics in that sense, but I disnt quite follow that corridor debate..