Researchers discuss the logistics of successful fieldwork but not the mental health considerations that fieldwork and the research process introduce. Successful fieldwork and fruitful academic careers hinge on acknowledging and managing our mental health. We discuss peer-support networks, secondary trauma, coping skills, therapy, and researchers’ mental health options before, during, and after fieldwork.

The traditional process of peer review and publication has come under intense scrutiny in recent years. The time seems propitious for a consideration of alternatives in political science. To that end, we propose a Peer Review and Publication Consortium. The Consortium retains the virtues of the traditional peer-review process (governed by academic journals) while also mitigating some of its vices.

Recent research points to a gender gap in journal-article authorship: women are underrepresented. Given that publishing a book remains central to many political scientists’ careers, this article explores the extent to which gender publication and citation gaps also exist for books. We find that although the gender publication gap for university-press books has narrowed over time, it remains larger than for journal articles. We also find that book-authorship patterns do not reflect the shift toward coauthorship observed for journal articles. Conversely, we find no gender citation gap for books written by one woman. However, books coauthored by coed teams or teams of women receive far fewer citations than books written by one man or one woman or by teams of men.