“Publish or perish.” Every graduate student has heard the phrase. Many junior scholars understand that it reflects the cold reality of professional survival in any political science department that bases tenure and promotion decisions, in whole or in part, on a record of demonstrated scholarly achievement. Despite occasional pronouncements by college presidents or faculty committees that teaching should be given greater weight in personnel decisions, the pressure to publish will not soon subside. If anything, it may be becoming more acute, as graduate students entering the job market struggle to publish some portion of their dissertation in a respected scholarly journal so as to distinguish themselves from the pack of applicants presenting otherwise similar credentials.I wish to thank Jack Jacobs, Lenny Markovitz, Michael Hiscox, and the graduate students at the CUNY Graduate Center and Harvard University for many useful suggestions and comments on the presentations that served as the basis for this article. I have incorporated ideas offered by Jim Jackson, Marianne Stewart, and John Geer at an editors' roundtable in which we participated at the 2006 Midwest Political Science Association meeting. Bob Lineberry and two anonymous referees helped me to clarify certain points in the manuscript. I am responsible for any errors that remain.