Writing for Wider-Circulation Discipline-wide Journals
As you plan your projects for the next year or so, let me encourage you to think about writing for scholarly journals such as Science, Nature, J of Econ Literature or AER, Am J of Soc, etc. These journals have very high impact factors, and may well lead to your best known work (whether or not it is your best work), for decades hence. The article may be about path-breaking research or a survey of what we know in a particular area. In general, survey articles are not the province of more junior faculty (you won't get much credit for them, they are "just" review articles), but they are ideal for more senior faculty. They increase visibility and they build on the specialized work you have already done. They are scholarly articles, not opinion pieces or Comments or Editorials.
The hit rate for these journals is often low, and sometimes it pays to write to the editors with a proposal for an article.
One of the often-asked questions when people come up for full-professor is whether they have written for wider-circulation journals rather than specialty journals. Not lots, but once or twice.
My list of journals above is very incomplete.
{S If you are more junior, you want to develop the depth of your scholarly contribution. Don't be diverted by this note. Do publish in the strongest venues. Do aim to raise grant monies from the most competitive sources such as NSF, NIH, etc., if that is appropriate for your work. Do aim to have your work featured at the meetings in your field. Do publish at least some work under your name alone.


