1 Journal or 2?

To clarify terminology, I am using "The Times" to refer to what we were calling the "Perspectives" journal, and "Perspectives" to actually refer to a kind of article. In general I can conceive of three different kinds of articles/approaches:

1. Non-disciplinarian articles accessible across any discipline - focusing on identifying and reporting on cool new research, exposing important problems we all face and identifying what people are currently doing to tackle them, etc. etc.
1. Essentially the research-based version of Spec articles - very much reporting journalism centric - imagine a more synthetic, academically integral, and broader (encompassing more fields) NYT science & tech section
2. "Perspectives" articles - short (1-3 page) analysis of a problem of general interest, methods that have been taken to approach this issue from different fields, a synthesis of these ideas and a proposed solution for improvement
1. Concrete example
3. Interdisciplinary research article submissions that are still accessible to an audience outside of the specific discipline of study, but with a considerable degree of technical quality and not necessarily non-disciplinarian in the broadest sense, which #1 is

Synthesis of these ideas:

Two journals: the "Times" would encapsulate article type 1, the "CURJ" having types 2 and 3. The reason for this distinction in my mind is that the two attempt to capture two very different audiences, and combining them risks the ostracizing of both reading constituencies. If we want #1 to be commercially accessible (imagine someone on the street reading about new developments on global warming), it can highlight but cannot really engage too deeply with the actual research upon which it stands. On the other hand #3 is something that, I think, can aim to satisfy a much more academically minded audience (not necessarily just academia itself, but someone actively engaged in their field professionally rather than someone waiting at the dentist's office)

As many of you pointed out, however, if we were to simply stack together articles from different fields next to each other (purely #3), we would be a multidisciplinary journal competing with everyone and not necessarily contributing anything unique to the Columbia community. At the same time, I think there is certainly a space for truly interdisciplinary work on campus, and for a better research journal--the question, of course, is how to accomplish this? To this end, here are two points:

1. The key challenge is, of course, finding interdisciplinary articles. I think this could be done in a number of ways in the short term:
1. Reaching out to professors teaching interdisciplinary seminars or courses that lie at the nexus of different perspectives, and seeing if their students want to submit to the journal. Odds are we can get interesting submissions from there.
2. Sending out word across the listservs/departments for what we're looking for--especially in the social sciences, I know people often write analytic articles synthesizing research from the field with a proposed solution at the end that aren't necessarily embedded in statistical analysis, etc. Maybe something like that.
2. I think that #2 can be a really innovative approach that changes how people approach undergraduate research journals, and help us incentivize people pick it up
1. We could work together with the author to write "Perspectives" articles that encompass the earlier description, serving to provide a contextualization for the following research article, which expands a specific point within that broader problem. I think that framing it that way would make these research articles more accessible--if we can tell people why it's important to read the article before actually exposing them to the manuscript itself, they're more likely to read it. Especially at the undergraduate level.
2. These "Perspectives" are especially interesting because they would not just be review articles synthesizing what has been done, but also critically evaluating those decisions thus far and thinking about what can be done.
3. I think this kind of article could be made accessible to a general audience, as the example shows, so that people not necessarily versed in the field of the research article would still want to read these new Perspectives, especially since they prescribe some sort of solution. The reason I don't think this fits with "The Times" is because of the nature of such an article. As you can see from the example, while it is accessible, it takes a certain kind of analytic to engage with and appreciate such an article, and while there is certainly a broad readership for such an article, and a void to fill in that regards, I think it's a different readership than type #1.

That's what page I'm on at the moment--I think looking at these different approaches synthetically, it makes sense to have a journal for #1, and a separate journal for #2 and #3. I think the synthesis of #2/#3 and the types of articles we can collect can really put us on a different plane from other undergraduate research journals, and, indeed, that there is a void for a journal that attempts to engage its audience about what their peers are working on, and the professional fields at large outside of what specifically the individual may be working on. #1 is equally exciting, I think, in its potential to convey information that, while not as technically intensive, are still embedded in research and make it accessible to someone not in that field.

Certainly there is a synergistic interaction here, I think. Anyways, these are my thoughts--please post your own, whether it's a response to these ideas or a complete slash and reconceptualization! We'd love to hear any and all thoughts about this :)

--Darpan