The life and times of a journal article

My article ‘What Not to Wear? Girls, Clothing and Showing the Body’ has finally been published. I say finally, not in criticism of the workings of the journal that it is published in, but as a description of the life and times that this article has been through.

First written in 2005, an earlier version of this article was submitted to a highly ranked UK journal of sociology but, after a reviewing period of several months, was rejected outright. Next, the article was submitted to a highly ranked European journal of sociology. Despite acknowledging its receipt, the editors never let me have a decision and did not respond to emails or snailmail (postal) queries about its status. Essentially, I was ignored! Taking their resounding silence over a period of half a year as a hint that my work was not wanted, I submitted it elsewhere.

The article was eventually submitted to Children and Society in December 2008. It was finally accepted for publication in April 2009, and published ‘virtually’ (early view) online in June 2009. The paper copy of the journal in which my article appears has a publication date of November 2010 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1099-0860.2009.00239.x/abstract.

Published journal articles then take on even more of a life of their own, of course. My article ‘Mannheim’s Sociololgy of Generations’ was first published sixteen years ago in the British Journal of Sociology in September 1994. According to Google Scholar at least, it has been cited over 70 times in other publications. The article now lives on in cyberspace, made readily available to audiences by others (not by the publisher directly, and not by myself) as a complete PDF download (for example, http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/201/articles/94PilcherMannheimSocGenBJS.pdf).

I wonder what will happen to ‘What Not to Wear?’ in sixteen years time?