Rejoinder: Concluding Remarks on Scholarly Communications

We are grateful to DeFord et al. for the continued attention to our work and the crucial issues of fair representation in democratic electoral systems. Our response (Katz, King, and Rosenblatt, forthcoming) was designed to help readers avoid being misled by mistaken claims in DeFord et al. (forthcoming-a), and does not address other literature or uses of our prior work. As it happens, none of our corrections were addressed (or contradicted) in the most recent submission (DeFord et al., forthcoming-b).

We also offer a recommendation regarding DeFord et al.’s (forthcoming-b) concern with how expert witnesses, consultants, and commentators should present academic scholarship to academic novices, such as judges, public officials, the media, and the general public. In these public service roles, scholars attempt to translate academic understanding of sophisticated scholarly literatures, technical methodologies, and complex theories for those without sufficient background in social science or statistics.