Editorial: On My Way Out—Advice to Early Career Scholars VII: Best Practice for Workshopping Projected Edited Collections (Books, Symposia) in 10 Not So Easy Steps

[Editor’s Note: This Editorial by ICON EIC J.H.H. Weiler is forthcoming in ICON.]

On my way out? It appears, you might be thinking, to be a very long and winding way, and I cannot even promise that this is the last instalment….  Still, for what it is worth, here is another of my “dos and don’ts” advice on topics addressed to early career scholars on their way in, and in this case, most decidedly, the advice may profit advanced scholars and even those like me who are on their way out.

Eons ago I inveighed against edited books, or rather, unedited books (see vol. 14:3). When invited to contribute to such volumes, my advice was: proceed with caution, avoid if at all possible.

Here are a few snippets, which can be entitled “Worst Practice”:

The routine is well-known and well-practiced. You receive an invitation to present a paper at some conference. You accept. You may adapt something you have already written or something that you are working on which is in some way connected. It is often not exactly what the conveners had asked for or had in mind, but perhaps close enough so as not to have to reject the invitation. The conveners are often accomplices in this little approximation. They are committed to the conference; it is often part of some grant they have received. Sounds familiar?

…

You attend the conference. The papers presented are of very variable quality and relevance. There is the usual conference overload so that the habitual 10-15 minute “commentator” input may be interesting but of limited value to your paper….

At the end of the conference the conveners remind participants of the publication plans. More often than not they already have an agreement, even a contract, with the publishers. Typically one is given a deadline for the final version of the paper. How much work is done on the draft presented at the conference? It varies, of course, but in general not much. Crossing T’s and dotting I’s. Adding a footnote here and there. One is already busy preparing the next paper for the next conference.

…

Now we arrive at the crux of the problem. How often does one receive detailed editorial comments from the “Editors” on one’s final submission? The sad answer is – rarely. And even when one does they are all too often of a tentative and even perfunctory nature. How often have you, as editor – hand on your heart – sent out such? The fiction is that the conference, with the commentators and discussion, would have served that editorial function. It is a fiction.

The result is one more edited book or symposium destined for oblivion.

However, good edited collections (a rarity) can be hugely useful. I will henceforth refer to books but this advice is applicable, too, to journal symposia.

• They can illuminate a theme with different and distinct voices that cannot be achieved by a single-authored monograph.
• A good and coherent edited book can become a standard reference resource of the field or theme examined.
• A well-edited book can also be useful to the contributors. In preparing the book the various contributors can benefit from careful and pointed comments by people working and thinking on the same overall theme who have read the draft carefully – collective peer review if you wish. Typically, individual contributions to edited books are not peer reviewed.

The resulting book can thus be, in its overall conception as well as in the different contributions, well-written, meaningful and can constitute an original, ideally indispensable, contribution to the discipline.

So now let’s turn, step by step, to what I consider the “Best Practice”.

Please take this with a grain or even two grains of salt. This is not The Decalogue (even The Decalogue had two versions, one in Exodus, the other in Deuteronomy…). Modify it in ways that are more in line with your sensibilities and circumstances. But I do think that each of these “Ten Commandments” is worth considering.

Step One

This is probably the single most important step. When the idea comes to your mind to prepare an edited book, you simply must give yourself an account, with a lot of internal integrity, of why you want to proceed with this project, and in what way the projected book will constitute a meaningful contribution to the existing literature. What is lacking in extant scholarship on the topic that this book will fill, that will justify the effort?  How will it contribute to an advance of the discipline? What will be new about it?

Here are some obvious possibilities: this is a field that could benefit from a distinct theoretical framework (e.g. TWAIL). This is a subject—such as sports law—which has been blind to gender or feminist jurisprudence, or from an economic analysis of law or a Marxist lens. There might have been new developments which may require rethinking of existing scholarship. You get the idea.

Here are the reasons which cannot and should not be the principal incentives behind the project:

• Well, it would be another “book” on my CV
• Over coffee with a couple of friends, say Jacob and Rachel, someone suggests: let’s do an edited book on… wow, let’s do it
• Yes, and let’s do it by way of a “conference”. We can invite our friends, and/or invite a bunch of “important” people (at least important in their own eyes). These so-called “important” people will typically be the ones who give you most grief in the process, writing their own thing (typically recycling something already done) and paying little or no attention to your concept and editorial comments. They are the ones whose pieces you will find most difficult to refuse to publish.
• The incentive cannot simply be that this is a “hot” topic. Everyone is writing about it. Let’s add our own two bits. Examples? AI (the current menu du jour), or populism, or democratic slide, or an evergreen (in fact ever yellow and crumbling) topic like proportionality, et voilà, we have a conference, we have an edited book.  

Again, you get the idea.

Step Two

Put pen to paper, alone or with a couple of colleagues or with your collaborators, and write a serious concept paper, explaining briefly the state of the art, outlining its lacunae and then explaining in what way this book is meant to fill the gap, advance the field, make a contribution to the discipline.

This is important for the obvious reason that actually having to write a concept paper of this nature will constitute a reality check for you—that substance veritably takes precedence to ego. Additionally, it will serve as the covenant you will be offering potential contributors: accept to contribute only if you agree with this concept (of course, comments, criticism and suggestions welcome) and agree to do your research and write your contribution in a way that fits this overall scheme.

The concept paper will also serve as the very preliminary draft of the eventual Introduction to the edited book or symposium.

Step Three

Workshop the draft concept paper. Not a formal workshop, just a presentation and discussion with a few trusted colleagues whose knowledge and good judgement you trust. Let them read the draft and then confer with them. In this case Zoom serves well.  Conversation and deliberation are infinitely more productive than simply getting some comments in writing. It responsibilizes your interlocutors—they cannot get away with a perfunctory “interesting”, “very good”, “here are a few suggestions”, and allows a proper give and take. Once done, you can rework the concept paper in the light of the comments (or abandon the idea if you come to the conclusion that your initial idea and enthusiasm were misplaced.) You appreciate the weight I give to a well thought out concept paper as the basis for the project.

Step Four

It is time to begin considering the structure of the book:  What are the distinct contributions we need so that each will be, in and of itself, an important piece, but also so that together the whole will be larger than the sum of the parts? A crucial albeit not an easy task.

Now, and only now, it is time to think of prospective contributors. I say “only now” because so often in planning a conference and book we start off by thinking “who has written interestingly about this. Let’s invite them”. The result is that we tailor the structure of the book to the proclivities of the authors rather than the other way round. This is putting the cart before the horse. Instead, only once you have decided what are the necessary components of the book to make it cohere with your concept has the time come to think about who may be the best contributor to this or that chapter.

It cannot be just the people with whose work you are familiar. Start reading. AI can be helpful at this stage, believe it or not. Do not forget gender. This is not “wokism”. As we have shown in both I·CON and EJIL, there is a tendency to overlook women scholars for reasons that I need not re-explain here. It is not simply “we need gender balance” (though this is in and of itself important). We need the best potential contributors and these are oftentimes women scholars who tend to be overlooked. The same logic should apply to other scholarly communities which may be outside your comfort zone.

In the same vein, a few “big” names may be useful. Some of them may still be doing very fine scholarship. But often young and emerging scholars are doing the most original work, not yet prisoners to their well-advanced conceptual universe.

Go back to the colleagues with whom you earlier consulted and share your suggested contributors. They are familiar with the project, have encouraged you to proceed. They may have useful suggestions on contributors too.

Step Five

Now one approaches the prospective contributors. It is a delicate act. You want them to say Yes, but on your terms. For each potential contributor, in addition to the overall concept paper, there must be a more or less detailed explanation how you see their potential contribution and its “fit” within the overall project. It can be and indeed should be a suggestion, open to input from the author. He or she might have different but better ideas. The important thing is to have a conversation (Zoom again?) and reach a consensus with which both you and the prospective contributor are comfortable. It cannot simply be: “This is the title of the projected chapter, are you willing to write it?” I cannot count the number of invitations of this nature I have received.

As a result of these conversations, you may be rethinking some of the elements in your concept paper. You may be switching around some of the authors. You may be discovering lacunae in your own project and looking for additional contributors. You may be dropping some topics (or authors) and looking for others. In effect, the editing of the book is already taking place before a single chapter has been written!

When this conversation is over, ask each contributor to send you a one-page abstract of his or her projected contribution. Explain that you want to circulate these abstracts to all contributors (the group now begins to take form) so that each will be aware, at least in general terms, what their co-contributors are doing and each will understand better the overall economy of the projected book. The abstract will also be a discreet check that you and each author are on the same page.

Step Six

Explain to the contributors that the next step will be a workshop—in person, if at all possible and if your budget allows, or on Zoom. You should do everything in your power to hold the workshop in person. It is infinitely more productive (and socially enjoyable) than Zoom.

It is important to emphasize that the workshop is exactly that: a workshop, not a conference in which one presents a paper. The distinction is crucial. Each author will have the opportunity (a polite way of saying obligation) to react and make constructive suggestions to his or her fellow contributors and will receive feedback from the whole group.

Set a deadline for the workshop. Give a realistic time frame—several months.

Now comes a somewhat counterintuitive element. Insist that authors should not submit a draft of their final paper but a more concise version of, say, 5000 words, which eventually will be turned into the final draft of, say, 10,000 words.

There are several reasons, from my experience, for this procedure. First, you do want all participants to read all papers. It is more likely, and less daunting, to read, say, eight drafts of 5K words than eight drafts of 10k. Additionally, authors will not have fallen in love with these early drafts in the same way we tend to fall in love with our finished work, with the tendency to circle the wagons and deflect any criticism or suggestions that require more than a perfunctory footnote.

Step Seven

Organizing the workshop. It is simply imperative that you insist that the 5k drafts be sent in at least, say, 10 days before the workshop. You want to avoid papers arriving a day or two ahead of the workshop, which would mean they are read, if at all, on the plane, or train on the way to the venue. Read them the riot act. Explain the rationale. And if you are like me, be draconian. It’s like the speed limit: if you drive 70 miles an hour rather than 65, the police will not stop you (except in Maryland). If someone is late by a day or two, we just send a gentle reminder (more like an iron fist in a velvet glove). If it has not arrived a week ahead of time, I drop the person. Done that more than once or twice.

For the workshop I would suggest that the gold standard is one hour per paper. Since everyone was required to read the texts, the presenter can be limited to five minutes, if at all.  If everyone is aware of that, it is another incentive to read the papers ahead of time. You may ask one of the participants to act as commentator for each paper (10 minutes (which invariably means 15). Insist (there is a lot of insisting in this phase of the project!) that they have a written version of their comments. Encourage all participants to jot down their comments too (good luck with this).

The comments are different from the kind one gets at a conference or, say, a faculty seminar. They are all meant to be in the nature of “here is a way of making a promising and good paper even better”. It is, as mentioned, a friendly form of collective peer review. Some comments and suggestions will be, in the eyes of the author, silly or missing the point. But if an intelligent colleague makes comments, the author might well consider them when drafting the full paper so that others will not misunderstand the point in the same way.

The idea of the workshop is to collect as many constructive comments and suggestions as possible, so that, yes, it is not necessary or even desirable for the presenter to take time and “answer” each or any of the comments at the end. Five minutes at the end of the session is fine, and a mere “I thank you all for the very useful comments” may be all that needs to be said.

It may be useful, if at all possible, to have the sessions recorded as well as having an assistant make a summary of all comments made. At the end of the workshop, ask all commentators and participants to send their comments to you (not directly to the authors) as soon as possible – say within a week (several gentle reminders will typically be necessary). This will enable you to edit them and add your own comments and suggestions. Remember, you are the Editor of the eventual book or symposium. This is a critical stage in exercising this responsibility. So how you redact the various comments is an important way to exercise this responsibility. The memo that each author receives should look like a well-redacted peer review.

Step Eight

Give a realistic deadline for the final contributions. Not too little, not too much. Invite the authors to communicate with you if they have any problems with some of the comments and suggestions. Whilst you are waiting for these to arrive (the 65 miles an hour rule applies here too) you may be working on your own contributions and on adapting the concept paper/Introduction to the book in the light of what has transpired so far.

This, too, would be the moment to circulate the final drafts among all participants, inviting those who are willing and able to both offer comments and, more importantly, to see if the contributions of others may help enhance their own papers.

Now comes the most delicate and frustrating part of the process. It is not only waiting for some authors who do not respect the deadline. One can live with that. It is that at this point you have to act as an editor of a journal when dealing with “revised and resubmitted articles”. This is the part that rarely, if ever, takes place with run of the mill “edited” books. The content might be good, but the writing (the communicative dimension of the piece) might be poor. It has to go back to the author for revision. Important points raised by the “peer review” may have not been dealt with adequately or perhaps not at all. Back to the author. It can be a frustrating and irritating task for both you and your authors. But if you want a good edited book it is simply, here again, a must.

Step Nine

You have the final text(s) in your hand. Now you can put the final touches to the concept paper, which has become the Introduction. Typically, a good introduction to an edited book will start off with the concept and help the reader understand the rationale of the book and its contribution to the field. It will also walk the reader through the various contributions and explain how they serve the overall purpose of the book. It is a kind of “roadmap” for the reader. Now, with the final versions of the chapters in hand, is the time to put the finishing touches to this roadmap element.

The main substantive difference between the early draft of the introduction and the final draft is the result of having before you all contributions. It is the time to explain why and how the whole is greater than the sum of the parts; or, put differently, the contribution of the collection as a whole to the discipline.

This will also be the right moment to put the champagne in the fridge, but don’t pop it yet.

You may wish to send this final version to all contributors. Ask them, in particular, to read the Introduction (since they are mentioned they will certainly do so) and to give a final look at their own piece for last-minute emendations. Some might not have yet sent in their Abstract. Make sure that they indicate how exactly their name and affiliation must be mentioned in the list of contributors which will appear in the book.  Insist on brevity and consistency for all authors. In other words, now is the time for all those little but important loose ends that need final tying up and tightening.

If you have asked another of those “big” names to write a Preface, this is the time to get him or her to do their duty. Worry not. They will typically read the Introduction and say a few nice, occasionally important, words.

The book is ready to go to the publishers and, depending on your agreement, may or may not be subject to publisher peer report. If you have done all of the above, you need not worry too much about this either. Pop the champagne!

Step 10

At this point the “commandments” end and the following is more by way of suggestion, certainly not another “must”.

Even when faced with a very well-designed and executed edited book one last issue is worthy of consideration. Precisely because it is a well-designed and well-executed edited collection and thus draws the kind of attention one hopes for, by the nature of things readers might have many questions, comments and clarifications they would like to raise with one or more of the contributors.

It is in this spirit that I would like to suggest that prospective editors of such books consider the option of commissioning a so-called Dialogical Epilogue. I have been asked to do this on half a dozen or so occasions (see e.g. The Worlds of European Constitutionalism, the first time I did it, and International Legal Theory: Foundations and Frontiers, the most recent iteration). To judge by the reactions of readers and reviewers, they seem to have had a positive resonance and to add an interesting dimension to such books.

This is how the author of such may introduce the Epilogue:

It is the nature of all law books, and edited books in particular where authors are constrained by the space available to them, that oftentimes readers, if they could, would love to put a question, seek a clarification of even contest one or more propositions in what they read.

My role in engaging with the authors through this Epilogue is to be a “Consul of the Readers” and to put such questions to some of the contributions to this volume. Specifically, the various contributors to the volume typically would not have had the benefit of seeing the whole when writing their specific contributions – and maybe only few readers will take the time to read the edited book cover to cover. My questions to the various authors are, thus, informed not only by the specific contributions but by the perspective of seeing the individual trees and the forest as a whole.

Each of the questions posed to the authors in such a dialogue is not the kind of quick question one may hear in a typical faculty seminar. Each question might be quite long, say two to three pages, and engage deeply with the work, both by challenging and clarifying. Naturally, the authors are then given space to react to the questions and critique.

For the most part, not only readers but also the editors of the book and the contributing authors have been very positive about the experience and pleased by the possibility of engaging with critique, amplifying and clarifying, aware that such queries might indeed be in the mind of those who read their contribution. At its best it may be thought that a Dialogical Epilogue enhances the overall value of an edited volume.

If the idea is appealing it must be borne in mind that it comes with a cost. It delays by several months the date by which the manuscript may be submitted to the publishers and it adds, not insignificantly, to the length of the book. So, caveat emptor.

JHHW