Why Publish?

In humanities, there does not seem to be any good reason to privilege the academic journal over other venues. If the goal of humanities publishing is to spread new ideas, then it seems that creating a popular Internet blog would be the better choice. However, the goal of humanities publishing is not just to spread new ideas, but to spread "good" ideas, and this goal requires peer review. Professors rely on publishing venues that are anonymously peer-reviewed. The anonymity allows the reviewers to be painfully honest, telling them which ideas are not any good so that they can improve. In this article, the author explains how the competition involved in peer review still makes journals the best venue for publishing papers.