Blog

Notes on research, methods, and the academic craft

Occasional posts on research, methods, and the academic craft. Comments and reactions are welcome — I share most of these on LinkedIn, which is the easiest place to reply, or you can reach me from the About page.

Registered reports are available in political science and used almost nowhere

publishing

open science

registered reports

transparency

Sixty of political science’s most visible journals: eleven have offered results-blind review at some point, five offer it today, and one dropped it and came back nine years later. Why the format keeps failing to stick — and why it matters more now.

Aug 28, 2026

20 min

Did it matter where the paper landed?

publishing

transparency

citations

data viz

I pulled citation histories for all 30 of my published papers and colour-coded them by journal type. Top-3 journals raise the floor, not the ceiling — and the most-cited paper in my record is the one that got lucky.

Aug 10, 2026

9 min

What it actually takes to publish a paper

publishing

transparency

graduate students

data viz

I put my entire journal publication record online — and what it shows about the hidden time in publishing, and about aiming (or not) for the top-tier journal.

Jul 28, 2026

12 min

Area proportional to population maps

maps

data viz

Kenya

A density-equalizing cartogram of Kenya’s counties, with each county’s area proportional to its voting-age population.

Dec 7, 2014

1 min

Categories

Registered reports are available in political science and used almost nowhere

Did it matter where the paper landed?

What it actually takes to publish a paper

Area proportional to population maps