Is there a way | high-quality papers long samples? Mainly look at these points...

Author: Liu Qingchang, Professor of Shanxi University, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Shanxi University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition).

In humanities and social science academic journals, due to the complexity of disciplines and the diversity of research paradigms, the quality judgment of papers is always a headache. People are usually easy to accept the seriousness of natural science research, and there is often no comment on the norms and innovations of humanities and social science research, do humanities and social science academic papers have clear quality judgment standards?

This paper strives to construct a basic framework for judging the quality of papers in academic journals of humanities and social sciences, so as to facilitate the judgment of paper quality to be more rational and professional.

First, the basic quality characteristics of the paper

Behind the humanities and social science papers is actually the humanities and social sciences research carried out in accordance with different paradigms. Nevertheless, there will still be some general standards for humanities and social sciences papers that are very different from the natural sciences, which we can regard as the basic quality characteristics of such papers. Based on the academic attributes of humanities and social science research and the close connection between research in this field and social reality, the basic quality characteristics of the paper are mainly manifested in two aspects: academic characteristics and ideological characteristics:

01

Academic characteristics

Scholarship refers to both systematic learning and the process of studying knowledge, so academic works contain academic information as nouns on the one hand, and must also contain the normative process of academic production, and the papers we are facing are the products of the academic process.

Humanities and social science papers, some show the research process, some only present the conclusion and related arguments and explanations, even if the paper showing the research process, it is impossible to show all the information of the research process, therefore, the paper we are facing is basically a textual research result. In the face of such academic works, we need to grasp the following quantitative and qualitative characteristics.

Informative, informative and academic

Academic papers have a natural tendency to seek truth, and their authors should follow the academic norms on the basis of existing understanding to contribute new information and knowledge to readers, and only by containing a certain amount of information, knowledge and academic content will they have public value.

The amount of information refers to the meaningful content that a certain length of text can provide, which can be factual, conceptual, or methodological, but no matter what kind of information of this nature, it needs to have empirical or logical reliability, which is a basic guarantee of the meaning of a text. Empirical reliability means, first of all, that the textual information has empirical possibilities, and secondly, that the source of the information is authentic. Such information allows the reader to indirectly obtain the truth about the world. Logically reliable means that the text provides information that our rationality can imagine. Information that is untrue and irrational logic is meaningless, and academic texts need to avoid such content, and instead should provide meaningful content with empirical and logical reliability commensurate with the size of the text. This is the first condition for us to psychologically accept an academic text.

Knowledge is information, but not all information is knowledge. The intellectual nature of academic research determines that the paper as an academic work must provide a large proportion of intellectual information, otherwise, the reporting nature of the text will be greater than the nature of epistemology, and the research labor behind it is questionable. The knowledge information in the academic text cannot be completely new, and more often the connection between less new knowledge information and more old knowledge information is presented in the text, and the reading effect is enriching, grand and continuous. Such a paper can make us feel the author's good learning.

Academic content is the degree of innovation in the conclusion of academic works and the standardization and sophistication of the research process of drawing innovative conclusions. Academic research aims to explore the unknown, correct the known, and pursue true knowledge, and the bottom line of its conclusions is that it has a certain novelty, if there is no novelty, an academic text is either "popular science" or simply demonstrates an academic process with rich information. The papers provided by real professional researchers usually have different degrees of innovation in their own opinion, and on this basis, a more in-depth investigation is the specification and cleverness of the "research process" contained in the paper. The texture of academic works is inseparable from the amount of information and knowledge, but what is more essential is the academic nature of the work, that is, the norms and clever attributes of innovation and innovation.

Fundamental, ideological and cultural

In another dimension, you can also judge specific academic texts from a qualitative point of view. According to the characteristics of the humanities and social sciences and the long-term experience of researchers in this field, the basic, ideological and cultural nature of the research contained in an academic text is an important feature of its quality.

There is a distinction between basic research and applied research in general disciplines, among which basic research is cognitive-oriented and applied research is practice-oriented. Even within basic research, there are more basic studies, which are often close to the core problems of a subject area. Since original research is most likely to occur in the field of basic research, and because basic research is relatively difficult, the degree of foundation of research contained in an academic text can usually reflect its profundity.

It should be said that the more basic the academic text, the greater its ideological potential, because the ideological nature means that the specific professional research results can have an obvious enlightening effect on people outside the professional field. Obviously, the more basic the research, the higher the degree of portability, the larger the scope of its revelation. Academic research in the humanities and social sciences should have an ideological pursuit, which is an important premise for making the final academic text flexible. We need to realize that the expert personality caused by expert practice can easily lead to the cramping and narrowness of academic texts, and such a paper, even if it is exquisite in the professional sense, its larger significance is unimaginable.

The culturality and thought of academic texts are closely linked, because ideas are the soul of culture. In addition, the cultural nature of academic texts also refers to the situation in which the author of the text combines the subject of study with the overall history and culture of mankind. Isolated professional discussion is manifested as a matter of fact in writing, and the resulting paper is difficult to have a grand, broad and heavy atmosphere, even if the professional problems are explained thoroughly, it is always less textured. The culture of the paper depends on the academic vision of the author, and a broad academic vision helps to improve the cultural connotation of the paper. From the perspective of research alone, a researcher of humanities and social sciences can only clearly explain the professional issues he wants to say if he understands both human nature and cultural interest. Humanities is the humanity of society, and society is a humanistic society. Academic papers in the humanities and social sciences need to reflect the essential characteristics of humanities and social science research.

02

Ideological characteristics

Natural science research is basically not involved in ideological problems in modern society, but humanities and social science research is not very different, because humanities and social phenomena always occur in a specific social and historical and cultural context, and are always inextricably linked to the mainstream values in this context.

The embodiment of ideological characteristics in papers is usually understood as a problem of political standards, in fact, it is not so simple, and when implemented in specific academic texts, it will be found that the grasp of ideological standards is a special academic problem. Ideologically-related papers can be divided into the following categories, and the understanding and grasp of each type of paper is generally an academic rational process.

Academic texts that are at odds with mainstream ideology

It is not difficult to encounter papers that are clearly different from the mainstream ideology, and the extremists will go to the opposite of the mainstream ideology, which is the question of political standards that do not need to be disputed. Such papers generally express the political concepts and systems advocated by the authors of the text, although they are academic texts, but the words can overflow the emotions and attitudes of the authors.

Objectively speaking, papers with such problems are usually not new in academic development, but only express another ideology that is different from the mainstream, because the other ideology has gone through a theoretical and historical process, and its academic value is negligible.

Academic texts dealing with a number of special issues

There is a category of papers that do not oppose the mainstream ideology, but the problems discussed will have indirect ideological effects at a certain historical stage, which is more difficult to grasp in the academic field of humanities and social sciences. Taking the religious issue as an example, it is well known that the mainland respects freedom of religious belief, but when we are faced with the issue of religious tolerance in European history, how should we decide the trade-off?

The author feels that although religious tolerance is a historical phenomenon, during the Enlightenment period, it mainly expressed the demand that the state allow individuals to choose forms of religious belief that are not recognized by the state, which is contrary to the current religious policy of our country. From an academic point of view, the issue of religious tolerance is only a kind of historical information, and there is no intellectual growth in the pure sense.

Academic texts in the study of Western critical theory

The critique of reality is an important orientation of Western modern and contemporary philosophy and humanities and social sciences, and in this trend, many developmental research results have emerged, which have enhanced human knowledge.

Marx's Capital is a typical work of economic philosophy that criticizes reality. The school known as critical theory originated in the Frankfurt School of the 1920s, and in addition to its methodological contributions, the theorists of this school focused on illustrating the dominant structure and cultural composition of capitalist and socialist societies.

It should be said that critical theory is extremely academic, but it is also undeniable that the revelation of the dominant structure and cultural composition of the real society will have a realistic logical relationship with the real critical movement.

Second, the specific quality of the paper judgment

Humanities and social science research has different research paradigms, different paradigms of research results, and its academic quality judgment standards are different. Thus we can only talk about the specific quality criteria of the paper in terms of different paradigms.

Realistically, humanities and social science research can be roughly divided into three types: philosophical speculation, humanistic interpretation, and empirical positivity. Here's a point of detail:

Philosophical speculative papers

Philosophical speculative papers do not only refer to speculative papers in philosophical disciplines, but also refer to the basic theoretical research results in various humanities and social sciences, including philosophy. Such excellent papers are encounterable and unattainable, because the mainland's academic education and research tradition has never been speculative. Coupled with the academic practitioners' love for literature analysis and empirical research, the number of philosophical and speculative research results is small, and the quality is not high. This also brings about a certain degree of skepticism and contempt for the value of such research.

In essence, speculation is to discern by thinking, which occurs at the boundary of empirical discernment, relying on the intuition and logical ability of the research subject, finding meaning between concepts and concepts, and obtaining a new understanding of the object of study. For philosophical speculative papers:

The first thing to do is to judge the value of the object of speculation. Because speculation occurs at the boundary of empirical discernment, the things of the empirical world do not need to be discerned. For things other than experience, in principle, we can speculate, and we can only speculate, but not all objects have speculative value. If we admit that the object of speculation is meaningful only if it is a natural extension of the empirical world in the mind, then all speculative objects of subjective setting parallel to the empirical world are of no value, at least in academic study.

The so-called natural extension of the empirical world in the mind can be understood with the help of the concept of "existence" in philosophical ontology. "Being" is not "is", it is related to the empirical framework of "space-time", so that "existence" is not the most abstract concept compared to "being", but a highly abstract concept compared to the concrete "being". Obviously, the concept of "existence" is on the edge of the empirical world, and then abstracting forward, it comes to "yes", and only pure logical prescriptivity remains. In principle, objects of speculation like "existence" are of great value. Each specific humanities and social discipline has a basic research field, many of which need to be speculated on the object, knowing the will of speculation, it is easy to judge the value of the specific paper speculative object.

Second, it is necessary to judge the speculative level of a specific paper. This is a question of logic that is not merely purely logical, but that can be said about it is only the part of related logic. From the perspective of logic, speculation is a process of reasoning with concepts as elements and judgment as the mediatment. Then, in the face of philosophical speculative papers, we must first look for the key concepts in the text to see whether their meaning is clear, whether the definition is appropriate, and whether the meaning is consistent before and after; then look for the basic judgments in the text, especially the judgments as premises and conclusions, to see whether they have empirical and logical reliability; finally, it is also very core to analyze the logical rational path of the text, that is, the reasoning route, to see whether it conforms to the rules of the form of thinking. In fact, this is only the first step in judging the level of speculation in the paper, and then the dialectical level of the text can be further examined, which is beyond the scope of formal logic. Not only that, but high-level speculative texts can often reflect the author's logical efforts and romantic thinking of "doing as he pleases without exceeding the rules".

Third, it depends on the old and new and correct conclusions of speculation. An academic text must provide new conclusions to have obvious academic value, and authors with academic pursuits usually try to do so, so they usually think that there is new progress. This requires the reader to have a better academic vision and education, to be able to judge whether the conclusions of specific papers have made progress on the basis of the most advanced conclusions that have been established, and specifically, to see whether their conclusions complement and enrich the original understanding, and whether they are corrected and perfected. If the conclusion is found to be new, it is necessary to further judge its correctness or error. New does not mean true, only means not old. The judgment of right and wrong should be returned to the judgment of the level of speculation of the paper, which shows that the quality judgment of philosophical speculative papers is a holistic process in practical work.

Humanistic interpretation papers

Traditional Chinese scholarship takes humanistic interpretation as its priority, so that Chinese scholars are more willing and good at doing humanistic interpretation, and there are more such papers. However, it is the most difficult to form a consensus on the quality of academic research on humanistic interpretation, and the author believes that the main reason is that people lack a proper understanding of the nature of such research.

Humanities, with literature and history as the main fields, and part of the work of philosophy, the study of this field can basically be expressed as "doing learning". Not only is to do learning, kung fu should be between learning and asking, the scholar humbly swims, analyzes the principle of all things, judges the beauty of heaven and earth, and with the help of the exhortation of the classic (or important) text, makes people understand the meaning of the text, and can also use this to illustrate the new meaning of the researcher. Its utility is mainly to awaken history, highlight the vitality of humanities, and inherit excellent culture. In this sense, to judge the quality of humanistic interpretation papers, we should not create new knowledge as the standard, but should evaluate the value of the text it interprets, the level of interpretation, and the newness and inspiration of the meaning it expounds.

The value of the interpreted text is the basis for the academic quality of humanistic interpretation papers. The texts left over from history are enormous, and although each historical text has its own significance, its value for academic research is very different. One of the cruel manifestations of humanistic history is to select and retain only important texts that can speak for the times, and the text in addition objectively serves as the background for the production of important texts, just as "one will become a thousand bones", countless scholars have been annihilated, countless texts have been shelved, and only a few nodal figures and their works have been famous in history. Researchers in the humanities, in an innovative standpoint, have had explanatory studies of important historical texts and have shifted their attention to lesser texts. However, the text does have a difference in value, and if the text chosen for a paper is of little value, the whole subsequent research work is basically a kind of manual labor, and the whole paper is not desirable in the sense of academic research.

If the choice of text is appropriate, the reader will have to examine the level of its interpretation.

When it comes to interpretation, what traditional Chinese scholars do is basically a matter of examination and interpretation, they are faithful to the text, cautious of unspoken meaning, pay attention to no thoughts and no origin, the superior can be erudite, prudent, discerning, their people can be gentle and elegant, and their writing can be orderly. Such a scholar has a culture, such a text is a kung fu, such a study is more than the insight and skill of learning, if it is said that the innovation of thought and the improvement of knowledge are lackluster. Considering that the value of the humanities mainly lies in continuing the cultural bloodline and promoting the humanistic spirit through the continuous interpretation of classical texts, readers can judge such papers with an appreciative eye, but considering that the matter of interpretation has changed from technology and methodology to a philosophical thinking in the West, it is impossible not to face the limitations of traditional interpretation as a means of humanities research. Not to mention that contemporary Gadamer (1900-2002) has textulated the historical socio-cultural phenomena that have attracted attention, and Dilthey (1833-1911) has long regarded the historical world as the object of the whole reality of human experience. Chinese literature has a long history, but progress is slow, it seems that it is necessary to write articles on philosophical methods, otherwise, high-level academic works must be encounterable and unattainable.

Interpreting a text is primarily a metaphor, but it is by no means just an understanding of the meaning of the text itself. When we regard interpretation as an innovative method in the humanities, interpretation is no longer a skill of Mr. Teaching, but must be transformed into a way for humanistic scholars to expound and excavate humanistic novelties. In the process of infinite reading and interpretation of classics, new ideas in the humanistic world can continue to emerge and human civilization can continue to develop, which is also the mission of humanistic scholars.

Texts enlighten scholars, scholars expound ideas to enlighten everyone, is the norm for humanities research. In the face of a large number of humanistic interpretation papers, readers of academic journals, as the first pass of the "socialization sieve" of papers, should examine the value of the text interpreted in the paper and the humanistic interpretation of the author of the paper, but also pay attention to the cultural utility of humanistic interpretation. It cannot simply be considered that the excavation and elaboration of ideas based on classical texts is a subjective random, in the process of elaboration, new ideas are naturally created, and classical texts are therefore not only the object of eternal recitation, but also the resources of thought creation. I have heard that some scholars express their experience of reading classics, which has been repeatedly criticized by professional scholars with skill, and the author realizes that there are two attitudes and methods towards classic texts. The critic is naturally a scholar who adheres to the traditional method of scripture, and the criticized party consciously or unconsciously practices the method of Diltai hermeneutics.

It should be said that the academic work of both sides has its own individual value, but relatively speaking, the work of the criticized party should be understood. On the basis of understanding, humanities and social science journals have an obligation to help gradually standardize such research, so that the study of the humanities can gain new life while continuing the excellent tradition.

03

Empirical empirical papers

There is also a type of paper that draws on the social science research results of the natural science paradigm, which does not come from a single subject area, but is distributed in almost all humanities and social sciences disciplines.

It is characterized by the guidance of the methodology of positivist philosophy, the acquisition of data by empirical methods, the processing of data by mathematical methods, and the conclusions of research and related discussions on this basis.

Readers of this type of paper who are good at speculation and humanistic interpretation are deeply troubled, lacking a deep understanding of the empirical empirical method itself on the one hand, and doubting the value of such research on the other. In this regard, we need to have an objective and rational attitude. Although the research objects of the humanities and social sciences are different from the natural sciences, there are indeed some quantitative facts and facts that can be quantified, which is also the basis for the rational transplantation of empirical empirical methods. To say that there is a problem, mainly because many researchers do not know much about the mathematical philosophy behind the quantitative research method, coupled with the lack of a higher level of understanding of the pursuit of research itself, the actual performance is often with the help of a problem of little value to carry out an empirical method of rehearsal, which inevitably makes people feel headaches about such papers.

In fact, the introduction of empirical empirical methods has played a positive role in the development of the humanities and social sciences, and high-quality empirical research results are worth cherishing in the field of humanities and social sciences. Judgments on this type of paper can be made from the following aspects:

First, the problem and the purpose. All research begins with a problem, which is particularly evident in empirical empirical research. According to the line of empirical research, such scholarly texts must first explain the problem to be studied, which is not an item, but a question or problem in the sense of research. We can further interpret the problem as "the problem that needs to be solved", and the promise as the "problem that needs to be solved", that is, the problem that can trigger the research process is either cognitive confusion or practical obstacle, needless to say, the confusion and obstacle here should be commonly faced by people in a field, if it is only the researcher's personal confusion and obstacle, the resulting research is meaningful to the individual, but it is meaningless in the specific academic field. Scientific research has only the first and no second, so when a true problem in the field of study is discovered or touched, subsequent research is naturally creative. When examining empirical empirical papers, it is necessary to first make a judgment on the truth and falsity of the problems contained in the papers. A good paper will also explain the effects of the problem after the problem is resolved, which is the ultimate goal of the study. Many authors tend to see the solution of the problem itself as the purpose of the study, although it is not wrong, but not thorough. When the subsequent effects of specific problem solving are stated, it is equivalent to linking specific research with the entire research field, and the significance of research is obvious.

Second, the process and method. A distinctive feature of empirical empirical research is that it has a clear sense of method, which is different from philosophical speculation and humanistic interpretation research. It can be seen from such research texts that after the question is raised, there must be a specific research design, including the process and method of research. The empirical research methods designed by the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences mainly include observation, investigation, experiment, and quantitative analysis of literature, and the research texts usually make operational explanations.

The basis for judging whether the research method is appropriate or not is the relevance between the research method and the problem solving. Research methods are not the more the better, nor the more complex the better, in principle, the best method choice is to use the simplest method to solve the problem faced. It is not difficult for us to find the current methodological tendency in the field of humanities and social sciences research in mainland China, which is specifically manifested in the fact that the problems studied are of little significance, the conclusions drawn lack of novelty, and the entire research text basically shows the methodological cultivation of the researchers (who are also authors). This can only show that some researchers have not yet entered the specific academic field, and the result is that research papers are emerging in an endless stream, but it is difficult for us to feel the obvious development of scholarship.

Judging the rigor of the design of the research process is mainly a review of the normative sense of the research process. The use of each research method is carried out in a process way, has its own standardized steps, if the norm is strictly followed, the research method can play its unique function, otherwise, even if the method and the problem are appropriate, the purpose of the research can not be completely achieved. As far as the research process itself is concerned, if it cannot be fully standardized, the light one will lead to the lack of research, and the heavy one may also lead to the emergence of pseudo-research. In fact, although empirical papers present information about the research process and method in structure, the limitations of the text will also make the research process information unable to be fully presented, so the examination of the research process and method must focus on the effort.

Third, conclusions and discussions. After researchers use various methods to obtain valid data and materials, they usually perform mathematical or philosophical processing on the data and materials to draw the conclusions of the research and theoretically analyze and discuss the conclusions. This part is the most popular with the researcher's theoretical skills, and it is precisely this part that is generally weak at present.

Such weakness is felt to be an imbalance in the structure of a paper, lack of aesthetic qualities, and in essence due to the lack of theoretical skills of the author, so that the data obtained by the research and the conclusions made are wasted to a certain extent.

Third, the relevant reference factors

In the face of papers, we mainly make purely academic judgments, but also consider some marginal factors relative to the academic research itself. For example, the situation of the text, the situation of the author, and the situation of academic norms and academic ethics, although marginal, these factors are not unimportant, and should be related reference factors for judging the quality of the paper.

What we call the text situation refers to the quality of the text in the sense of writing, and it can also be said to be a problem of text maturity in the sense of writing. To say that a person is well educated and an article is good is obviously to separate knowledge from articles, which is reasonable. The independence of the essay itself is also a prerequisite for the establishment of the science of writing. In the above three types of research, empirical empirical papers, the structure of the article is usually formatted and standardized, the closer to the natural science style of the text, the more obvious the traces of its formatting, so that it is easy to think that this type of research paper does not need to be very elaborate in writing, in fact, it is not. You know, even in the pure natural sciences, technical scientific research, there is also a special training in scientific and technological paper writing. Although the large structure of empirical empirical papers is difficult to get rid of common norms, there is still a distinction between the expression of research results. Relatively speaking, the quality of writing for philosophical speculation and humanistic interpretation papers is very important. Since there is no uniform format specification for the expression of these two types of research, the quality of a paper is actually a synthesis of academic quality and article quality. In judging the quality of the paper, the reader will also examine the situation of the author of the paper. This sounds like a question that has nothing to do with the quality of the paper itself, but experienced scholars never overlook this aspect of the examination. The reason is that the author's age, education, professional direction and other information can provide us with auxiliary information for the quality judgment of the paper. As we all know, researchers generally reflect that it is difficult to publish papers, and from the perspective of the journal, it is likely to be a false proposition. Because the journal editorial department is hungry for high-quality papers, a huge number of papers objectively consume a lot of energy from editors because they do not meet the quality requirements of journals. It is difficult to publish, to be precise, it is difficult to publish in high-quality academic journals, and it is difficult to publish papers that do not meet the publication requirements. Personnel assessments, job title evaluations, and doctoral students of universities and research institutions need to publish papers in core journals, which undoubtedly forces those who do not yet have high research capabilities to do things that they cannot do on their own. Who can deny the fact that authors and works cannot be separated?

In addition, the academic misconduct detection that has been widely implemented can efficiently and intuitively find the degree of overlap between papers and published literature, involving academic norms and academic ethics issues, which cannot be ignored. Data technology provides us with convenience and reduces labor, but obscures many specific academic details. The author found that the current "check" encountered at least the following two situations:

Problems with repetition of scholarly texts with other authors

There are two possibilities here, one is the over-citation of annotations, which is a problem of academic norms, and the other is unclaimed plagiarism, which is a problem of academic ethics.

Overlap with the author's own previous publications

There is indeed an element of the author's mental laziness, as well as the author's inability to re-express existing ideas in a new context. There is a situation that can be tolerated, that is, the new academic texts are a systematic arrangement of the fragmentary thinking of the past, such new texts have academic value, and it feels that there is a high proportion of repetition of the old and new texts, but it is not a problem of laziness or low energy.

In summary, the judgment of the quality of papers in humanities and social science journals is a complex and systematic problem. Because of this, only by linking the judgment of the quality of the paper with the study of humanities and social sciences can the essence of the problem be touched. It can be said that after grasping the basic quality characteristics and specific judgment standards of the paper, coupled with the investigation of relevant reference factors, the reader's judgment of the quality of the paper can gradually enter the conscious and orderly rational track.

Source of this article: University Training Network, Friends of Editors, No. 5, 2015, original title: "Judgment of Manuscripts of Humanities and Social Sciences Journals"

Author: Liu Qingchang, Professor of Shanxi University, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Shanxi University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition).