Is research by adjuncts regarded as less "authoritative" than by tenure-track professors?

[Averroes MD]

Is research by adjuncts regarded as less "authoritative" than by tenure-track professors? By "less authoritative" perhaps I mean "less well-regarded." 

Edited December 4, 2015 by Averroes MD

[pro Augustis]

I don't know about much bias along those lines, but I think that there is an indirect relationship, because someone who puts out highly respected work is obviously more likely to get a tenure track position. 

[dr. t]

I mean, journal articles don't tend to list your rank at times of publication, so I'm not sure how anyone would find this information out without looking for it. Name recognition certainly matters.

[rising_star]

2 hours ago, pro Augustis said:

I don't know about much bias along those lines, but I think that there is an indirect relationship, because someone who puts out highly respected work is obviously more likely to get a tenure track position. 

I don't think that's true anymore for a lot of fields since there are way more good researchers being produced than tenure-track positions available. For example, Andy Merrifield, a pretty well-known and very highly respected Marxist scholar was denied tenure at one point several years ago and has since adjuncted and made a living as an independent scholar.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Averroes MD said:

Is research by adjuncts regarded as less "authoritative" than by tenure-track professors? By "less authoritative" perhaps I mean "less well-regarded." 

Since reputable scholarly journals are technically built around blind review, I don't see how your institutional affiliation would matter to--or even be known by--a reader. Readers don't know who the article is coming from, so they can't sit there and say, "Wow, this article is coming from a tenured professor at Johns Hopkins, so it MUST be amazing." Also, journals routinely publish work by grad students, and sometimes that work is considered "better" and more cutting-edge than that of old tenured professors, often because it's coming from the people who are yet undiscovered.  

Now, it is believed that adjuncts are "tainted" by their adjunct experience when they're on the job market, but that's a different matter altogether. Of course the people with the most "elite" backgrounds often get the best jobs, and this improves their standing and reputation in the field, but that reputation isn't supposed to matter in blind review. 

[pro Augustis]

2 hours ago, rising_star said:

I don't think that's true anymore for a lot of fields since there are way more good researchers being produced than tenure-track positions available. For example, Andy Merrifield, a pretty well-known and very highly respected Marxist scholar was denied tenure at one point several years ago and has since adjuncted and made a living as an independent scholar.

Oh certainly. I just meant that it's morel likely to get tenure if your work is highly regarded than if most scholars don't find your research impressive. Tenure's far from a sure thing in either case, though. 

[random_grad]

I think the venue of publication matters more than rank of author. 

[rising_star]

4 hours ago, pro Augustis said:

Oh certainly. I just meant that it's morel likely to get tenure if your work is highly regarded than if most scholars don't find your research impressive. Tenure's far from a sure thing in either case, though. 

Sure, but this is assuming that one has tenure when publishing. In fact, some of the more prolific publishers are those without tenure, including those currently in graduate school. The journal's prestige is far more important than the author's.

[pro Augustis]

Yeah, that makes sense.