How Can You Make Your Research Remarkable?

The question “What will make my research publishable?” is essentially the same question as “What will make it remarkable?” or, more colorfully, “What will make it a purple cow?“¹ The details of what makes a specific research project into a remarkable “purple cow” differ depending on the who that your what is for. But at most, they tell you what specific shade of purple your research project should have for your audience. Your essential goal remains making your research purple, remarkable, extra-ordinary.

An Example Shade of Remarkable

For a journal article, a pretty fair account of how remarkable, or “purple,” research might note how the submission

1. Treats all of the relevant primary literature as presented in that literature’s standard-setting edition(s).
2. Treats all of the relevant secondary literature, whatever form it appears in (e.g., commentaries, monographs, journal articles).
3. Addresses a preponderance of current literature, especially from within the past 10–15 years.
4. Critically and substantively engages the literature, rather than merely citing it.
5. Gives an evenhanded, fair presentation of information.
6. Directly engages objections and opposing arguments.
7. Exhibits a mature, well-rounded perspective.
8. Makes a contribution to scholarship by advancing beyond what is already known or accepted, even when advocating essentially those same positions.
9. Fits the scope of topics the journal publishes, even if perhaps in unexpected or unique ways.
10. Adheres to the journal’s stylistic and technical expectations.
11. Reflects what the author would be happy to have as the piece’s final form.²

These elements give you a sense of the particular shade of remarkable purple often most appropriate for things like journal articles. Some journals might have preferences that differ a bit in one way or another. But even where they are, they’re still looking for a shade of remarkable purple—not a different color from the palette.

Other Shades of Remarkable

Even if your project’s audience lies elsewhere, however, you’re still doing biblical scholarship.³ And you’re still wanting that scholarship to be publishable, you’re still wanting it to be purple.

Let’s say, for instance, that you’re trying to publish your research in a sermon, but you say at one point, “Now, I wasn’t able exactly to decide what illustration might fit best here. So, I’m just going to skip to the next point. Come back next Sunday, though, and I’ll be sure to give this same sermon with a perfect illustration included.”

That’s not going to be good for encouraging your congregation to engage with what you’re presenting either at the moment or the following Sunday.

Given the difference in its genre, exactly this kind of situation doesn’t come up for a journal article. But you can see easily how it violates principle 11 above to have your research in a form that you’d be happy with as its final form.

Conclusion

Multiple other examples could be given for how the 11-point list above might best apply for particular kinds of publishing for particular kinds of audiences. But what you’re working on publishing in whatever venue is biblical scholarship. And that commonality means that there’s a strong family resemblance between what makes for purple biblical scholarship in one context and what makes for the same thing in another context, albeit in a slightly different shade.

1. Header image provided by Kordula Vahle. For the “first who, then what” principle, I’m particularly playing off of and adapting the discussions of Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t (affiliate disclosure; New York: HarperBusiness, 2001), 41–64; Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? (New York: Portfolio, 2010). The “purple cow” metaphor I’ve borrowed from Seth Godin, Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable (affiliate disclosure; New York: Portfolio, 2003). ↩︎
2. I’ve adapted this list from the one provided by Andreas Köstenberger, “Editorial,” JETS 44 (2001): 1–3. See also the criteria that the Evangelical Theological Society provides for crafting a quality conference paper proposal, for which the abstract “provides an overview of the argumentation, including a clear thesis statement and the main point(s) of the paper,” “clearly shows connections to the field’s literature
   highlights the contribution the paper seeks to make to the field,” and “is 200 to 500 words in length.” “Crafting a Quality Proposal,” The Evangelical Theological Society, n.d. ↩︎
3. Image provided by Laura Adai. ↩︎