History graduate student journals

Abstract

In 1971 two doctoral candidates, James W. Cortada and James H. Stone, penned an article in The History Teacher on the subject of graduate students and publication. Although some of their recommendations are dated (their injunction, for example, to “Use an electronic typewriter”), their introduction will doubtlessly resonate among current graduate students: “In the past several years the number of Ph.D.’s produced […] has outstripped the number of available jobs. The present economic crunch is making prospects even more dismal. As a result, competition for positions is increasing considerably. This condition is forcing many graduate students to reconsider what they can offer prospective employers. […] One obvious way in which a graduate student can make his job application more appealing than the others in the seven-inch pile on the chairman’s desk is to include a list of several scholarly publications.”[i] The more things change, as the saying goes, the more they stay the same.