In Defense of the Generalist Journal

This article is referred to by:

Geographic Silos: A Cautionary Note

JAPA’s Generalist Planning Journal Book Review Section

JAPA Is More Than a Generalist Journal

In a period of increasing specialization, what is the role of the generalist journal, one that speaks to a broad audience? The Journal of the American Planning Association (JAPA) is such a generalist journal. When it started more than 8 decades ago, at a time before planning subfields had matured, most other journals were generalist too. In such journals, each article needs to hold some interest for those with expertise in topics and geographies beyond those examined in the paper. In the past decades, however, specialist journals have vastly increased in number, changing the journal publishing landscape. Within planning, they cover topics from urban design to planning theory and allow important conversations to occur targeting other specialists. In addition, readers have moved from receiving a bound paper copy of a journal with a range of articles in each issue to searching online for articles that answer specific questions.

ABOUT THE EDITOR: Ann Forsyth is the Ruth and Frank Stanton Professor of Urban Planning at Harvard University.

In this complex and evolving context, generalist journals make a crucial contribution. In a world of scholarly silos, they publish articles framed to speak beyond a specialty. At their best, such articles grapple with concerns of broad interest in a field and make contributions that can transform the wider domain of knowledge. Generalist journals also include a range of topics, charting out the variety of interests in a field or discipline. Such journals can both help define a field’s boundaries and engage broad debates. Within planning and related fields, JAPA does have one particular focus: Articles need to have implications for planning practice. This shapes question framing, writing style, and conclusions and provides a JAPA style.

Questions of Interest to Many

At their core, articles in generalist journals need to pose questions of interest beyond those of concern within one specialty, conceptualizing the article for a broader audience. By this I mean a paper relating to transportation needs to hold some relevance for those who are experts in other areas such as land use, environment, housing, community development, and so on. Perhaps more important, a paper using a particular theoretical or methodological approach has to engage those who may see things quite differently (Roncaglia, 2013). To some extent, generalist journals can be an important locus of resistance to the hyper-specialization so many complain about. As Subhrajit Guhathakurta of Georgia Tech University commented when reviewing a draft of this article, “Without [generalist journals], there would not be a discipline, but only siloed subareas.”

This generalist orientation dictates some of the structure and content of the articles. Because those outside the specialty may not appreciate where the frontier of knowledge is located, the literature review and conceptual framing of such articles is quite important. Papers also need to need to be written for educated readers who may not be totally familiar with the empirical context. Finally, lessons for research and practice should be relevant beyond the specific place or topic being studied.

Many blinded referees of JAPA submissions have a strong sense of what makes a JAPA article and often explicitly state their opinions in reviews. They counsel avoiding work that is “respectable, but unexciting and of relatively narrow interest,” a description written in the context of the British Journal of Political Science but relevant to JAPA (Nagel, 2010, p. 722). My own publishing experience has been that generalist journals, particularly those sponsored by scholarly and professional associations, often have fairly strong editors. In such journals, the editor is not just a referee of expert reviewers but actively works with the authors to help them make the most of their argument. In short, generalist journals hope for papers that speak beyond a specialty.

Publishing in a Range of Areas

Although framing for a wide audience is a key characteristic of generalist journals, they have another role, which is to cover a range of topics. Though the notions of a printed and bound issue or volume of the journal may be increasingly anachronistic, in any one year generalist journals still strive to publish articles across many domains. The rationale here is to represent the diversity of subject matter in a field and, indeed, to debate the boundaries of a discipline (Aldridge, Biesta, Filippakou, & Wainwright, 2018). This can be tricky. As Goodin (2010) has pointed out, “It was easier for generalist journals to be truly general in earlier periods” (p. 3).

Several factors make this generalist orientation more difficult. With a certain number of pages a year, there is a limit in terms of how many areas can be covered. Although it may seem logical to aim to publish across a range of subfields or specialties, the editor really has only modest control of the submission flow. In some subfields, authors only send to specialist journals. Whereas a generalist journal may welcome submissions in that area, it may not get any and then appear to not publish in that subfield. Alternatively, people tend to send articles to journals that have recently published similar work (Goodin, 2010). This is typically good practice, but for a generalist journal this might mean receiving many submissions on topics that have already appeared in the journal. All things being equal, a certain proportion will get published, and the journal may appear biased toward one subject over others. In addition, just publishing articles from several subfields does not really fulfill the mission of a generalist journal to have each article framed to speak to an audience beyond a specialty (Nagel, 2010). Potential authors can email me to find out whether a topic not currently covered in the journal might be of interest to JAPA.

The Planning Practice Niche

Some generalist journals representing scholarly associations need to deal with turf wars over which specialties get the most space in each journal. As a professional association, the American Planning Association has not demonstrated such battles. JAPA does have a niche, however, flowing from its position as the APA journal. JAPA articles need to provide implications for planning practice (Forsyth, 2019). These implications need to be transferrable beyond the case and flow clearly from the research in the paper. This practice emphasis has a long tradition in JAPA.

Planning practice often involves more than one domain—comprehensiveness is, after all, a key value in planning—making a strong match with a generalist journal. There is a tension, however, because one common practice for such journals is to welcome work from those in related fields (Aldridge et al., 2018). JAPA does welcome such articles as long as authors can articulate implications for practice beyond directions for future research and aspirational policy ideas. However, articulating such implications is not always easy for authors from other disciplines.

Assessing Generalist Journals

Generalist journals face special dilemmas in terms of the race to measure journal success. In many fields, generalist journals are prestigious and do well in reputational rankings (Goldstein & Maier, 2010; Nagel, 2010). This is at least in part because of their framing; they are likely to address areas of substantial importance to the field and be read by those across a broad range of specialties. This potentially gives them more influence. Though more publication may occur in specialist journals, the generalist journals are also an academic common ground in departments and programs.

However, specialist journals can be highly cited, doing well in various quantitative metrics, particularly in some subfields. In planning, transportation and theory papers tend to do well in terms of citations, whereas those in environment and diversity do far less well (Stevens, Park, Tian, Kim, & Ewing, 2019). This echoes more general patterns across disciplines and specialist journals, with huge differences in citation rates and impact factors even in the sciences (Hicks, Wouters, Waltman, de Rijcke, & Rafols, 2015). By publishing across a range of areas, not only those most highly cited, generalist journals in some fields may struggle to achieve the average citation rates (journal impact factors) of specialty journals in the areas with most citations. Of course, in other disciplines, generalist journals’ broader framing may make them widely cited. This raises the question of quality versus impact and how to measure generalist journal success, a topic I plan to return to in a future editorial.

Substantively, as editor of a generalist journal I find myself mediating different expectations. What does it mean to speak beyond a specialty in terms of article content and tone? What is the definition of having broad interest? Which topics constitute planning research, and which are outside its boundaries? Reviewers and readers, particularly those on the Editorial Board or established in the planning professoriate, often have strong opinions on these issues, but they do not always agree. These are important questions, and I hope the journal will continue be an important forum for engaging them.

Acknowledgments

I participated with Clint Andrews in sessions about publishing at the 2019 Conference of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning; this editorial is in part a reflection on those conversations. I also thank Asha Weinstein Agrawal, who suggested the title, and Subhrajit Guhathakurta for extremely helpful comments.