Friday, January 07, 2005
Happiness in Failure
Yesterday I got a rejection letter. I had submitted my paper on Mormon Government (see link at left) to BYU Studies in the long-shot hope that they might like it. Truth be told, it wasn't (isn't) even in the best shape I could have come up with, but I thought I'd give it a shot anyway.
My rejection letter was two pages long. It praised the work, but then listed four very specific reasons they rejected it, and offered suggestions for making the paper better. I'm talking really specific things, like a list of potentially helpful sources that I had missed and counterarguments/corrections for specific points I made (they even quoted my paper a couple of times). They even said that if I spiffed the thing up a bit (OK, quite a bit), they'd be glad to take another look at it.
Usually, rejection letters are three-sentence affairs. When you don't really expect to succeed, they're not particularly painful, but this one was actually heartwarming and encouraging. I've never seen that in a rejection letter before. It's like the correct way to break up with someone.
I suppose BYU Studies's ulterior motive is that there aren't a whole heck of a lot of Mormon legal history scholars out there, and it's in their interest to encourage me to get the paper (and perhaps others?) to a publishable state. If they crush me, I might give up.
My only problem (and theirs) now is finding the time to revise this puppy.
My rejection letter was two pages long. It praised the work, but then listed four very specific reasons they rejected it, and offered suggestions for making the paper better. I'm talking really specific things, like a list of potentially helpful sources that I had missed and counterarguments/corrections for specific points I made (they even quoted my paper a couple of times). They even said that if I spiffed the thing up a bit (OK, quite a bit), they'd be glad to take another look at it.
Usually, rejection letters are three-sentence affairs. When you don't really expect to succeed, they're not particularly painful, but this one was actually heartwarming and encouraging. I've never seen that in a rejection letter before. It's like the correct way to break up with someone.
I suppose BYU Studies's ulterior motive is that there aren't a whole heck of a lot of Mormon legal history scholars out there, and it's in their interest to encourage me to get the paper (and perhaps others?) to a publishable state. If they crush me, I might give up.
My only problem (and theirs) now is finding the time to revise this puppy.
Comments:
Congratulations, I guess. It would be nice of there was more history out there on law and politics with the Church. On a side note, the bloggernacle's resident sci-fi author extraordinaire had a post this week about a very nice rejection he received as well.
David, who is this sci-fi guru?
As for your wish for more LDS legal history, I agree. The number one problem with my paper, according to the very legitimate authority of BYU Studies, is that I don't present anything NEW, although my paper is a great overview/summary of the subject of Mormon government systems. Now, I understand that scholarly journals can't go around publishing just any yahoo's book report, but especially in the field of history, I wonder how it's even possible to come up with something new. After all, history is, by definition, not new. I really enjoyed writing this paper, but I'm not about to go do original research in the Nauvoo city archives. Part of me thinks there should be a place for good, concise overviews (like my paper). The challenge of finding a thesis that makes an original contribution to LDS history is probably the main thing that will keep me from redoing and resubmitting the paper. Sigh...
Post a Comment
As for your wish for more LDS legal history, I agree. The number one problem with my paper, according to the very legitimate authority of BYU Studies, is that I don't present anything NEW, although my paper is a great overview/summary of the subject of Mormon government systems. Now, I understand that scholarly journals can't go around publishing just any yahoo's book report, but especially in the field of history, I wonder how it's even possible to come up with something new. After all, history is, by definition, not new. I really enjoyed writing this paper, but I'm not about to go do original research in the Nauvoo city archives. Part of me thinks there should be a place for good, concise overviews (like my paper). The challenge of finding a thesis that makes an original contribution to LDS history is probably the main thing that will keep me from redoing and resubmitting the paper. Sigh...
