Annotations Special Edition: Reflections on Reading Weekend 2024
The JPIA Editors-in-Chief share their insights on this year's Reading Weekend and offer a glimpse into the Journal's forthcoming 35th edition.
Dear Readers,
This special edition delves into Reading Weekend, a cherished tradition for JPIA. A few weeks ago, over a period of three days, the JPIA leadership team welcomed a group of graduate students from other APSIA schools to join the process of reviewing journal submissions and selecting the final pieces for publication. Now, as the dust settles, the Editors-in-Chief share their reflections and thoughts moving forward. Please enjoy!
Students at other policy schools are often surprised to learn that the Journal of Public and International Affairs (JPIA) is a completely in-house publication run by a team of just nine, full-time graduate students. It’s important to take a step back and remind ourselves that pulling together a top-class, peer-reviewed journal is no small feat. Reading Weekend—the three days a year when editors from around the world gather at Princeton to select the annual journal’s articles—is a great time to do this.
Most of our fall semester is spent organizing the submissions process, reviewing applications for visiting editors, and preparing the various logistics for the jam-packed Reading Weekend. The weekend itself passes in a flash—the excitement of meeting new people, the overwhelming amount of spreadsheets and Google Forms distributed and organized by our managing editors, and the exhausting, but thought-provoking, process of reading some incredible policy writing.
This year was no different. We received a record number of visiting editor applications and brought together thirty-seven policy students from seventeen graduate programs. These master's and PhD students came from across the United States and the world, including from programs in France, Singapore, Spain, and Switzerland. In total, we read more than seven million words—far surpassing last year’s total. Between our four reading rounds, we chatted, ate, played games, and strengthened our editing skills with a workshop led by Martha Coven. Over the course of multiple reading rounds, we whittled down our over ninety submissions to twenty. We ended the weekend with a lively Final Table, where the twenty remaining articles are discussed one by one, with an editor signing up to summarize, speak in favor of, and speak against the article, before each piece is voted on.
Reading Weekend—an intensive, inter-school, peer-review process— distinguishes JPIA from our many sister journals. We are so thankful to everyone who submitted original articles, to the thirty-seven people who traveled from afar to spend their weekend reading with us, and, of course, to our fantastic board for their enthusiasm and thoughtfulness. Now, onto the next thing: editing the nine brilliant articles we’ve selected and publishing JPIA’s thirty-fifth edition this spring!
JPIA Editors-in-Chief
Justin Schuster & Maya Woser