Ten years ago, while still teaching at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, I was offered the opportunity to become the editor of the Canadian Modern Language Review/ Revue canadienne des langues vivantes. A refereed academic journal published four times a year, the CMLR attracts a readership in over forty countries. My co-editor, Viviane Edwards, and I approached the President of the university with the news of the offer in order to solicit his official support. Having a prestigious journal like the CMLR housed at UNB would, we thought, be viewed positively by the President. I remember clearly his words to us: "As President of UNB, I support your acceptance of this editorship. Just remember, however, that as editors, you are very much the midwives for other people's ideas; your own writing and scholarship will be relegated to the back burner for the time-being." Six years later, having published some 5000 pages over 25 issues, I understood the full meaning of the President's metaphor of the editor-as-midwife.
Helping authors and would-be-authors through the birthing process of getting their ideas into print has given me a unique perspective. There are other editors who have written similar articles (see for example, Sandra McKay's excellent article "Writing for Publication", The Language Teacher, June 1997: 15-18, in which she describes the interaction of writer-text-reader). What I am sharing with you in this short article in Canadian Content is a few personal thoughts that I hope will demystify the publishing process. My thoughts refer particularly to academic, refereed journals; do not discount other forums for your writing such as newsletters of professional associations, popular educational magazines, education columns in newspapers, or publications of university alumni/alumnae associations. "But I have nothing to write about!"
A common feeling among teachers is that they have nothing worthwhile to write about. I feel that this merely is a reflection of a lack of self-confidence among a group of people whose self-image generally does not include "writer". If you count yourself in this group, try to reframe who you are as a professional. Teachers always have a great deal to say about what they do (just listen in on any conversations among teachers!), but they often doubt that what they have to say would interest readers of professional journals. It is important to realize that teachers are not only receivers of knowledge (i.e. conference goers and journal readers), but also creators of knowledge. It might be a cultural anomaly - the Canadian way, as it were - to assume that knowledge is always imported from elsewhere. However, how many times have you said to yourself while at a conference or while reading a professional magazine or journal, "Hey! I could have done (said, written) that!"?
When I am looking for ideas for what to write about, I look first at other people's writing. Literature on creativity suggests that new ideas are generated from existing ones; they don't just appear from nowhere. What you write does not always have to be completely new and original. Different perspectives on existing knowledge or reactions to current ideas are often welcome in certain writing forums. In addition, don't feel that you have to write the definitive treatise on a particular issue; a book review or a short explanation of a classroom technique is sometimes the most appropriate thing to write, especially if you are new to the publishing business.
Where can I publish my work?
One of the keys to success in publishing lies in finding the right forum for your work. To do this, try to read as widely as possible. Don't discount publications in seemingly unlikely places. For example, if you are a teacher of English as a second/foreign language, you probably read some of the more obvious journals in the field: JALT Journal, TESL Canada Journal, or TESOL Quarterly, for example. Try reading outside the strictly ESL/EFL field by examining journals such as the following: The Modern Language Journal, Foreign Language Annals (American Council of the Teaching of Foreign Languages), and (of course!), The Canadian Modern Language Review. Each of these six journals targets teachers, administrators and researchers and therefore their editors welcome teacher-generated research. However, breaking into print in one of these journals can be quite difficult since the editors receive a lot of submissions from teachers and researchers who have similar backgrounds to yours.
There are countless other journals which you might read and to which you might submit your manuscripts. Some are highly specialized and you might find your niche in one of these. Others are broad in scope but do not enjoy a large distribution either because they are new, or geographically localized, or because they don't have a large income from advertising. Some titles which you might wish to investigate are the following: The Alberta Journal of Education Research, Assessment and Evaluation Higher Education, Babel (the Journal of the Australian Federation of Modern Language Teachers' Association), Australian Journal of Adult and Community Education, College ESL, Computer Assisted Language Learning, Discourse Processes, English Language Teaching Journal, European Journal of Education, International Journal of the Sociology of Language, Journal of English and Foreign Languages, Journal of Second Language Writing, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Language and Education, Language Learning Journal, Reading in a Foreign Language, and TESOL in Context.
Add to this (partial) listing other possible Canadian journals which would likely welcome articles written by Canadians in Japan (we are, after all, a nation obsessed with learning about the Japanese educational system!). Two that come to mind are Language and Society/Langue et société and the Alberta Modern Language Journal. Try writing to the various provincial departments of education to find out if they have publications to which you might make a contribution.
Finding copies of these journals can be difficult for teachers living in Japan. I recommend writing directly to the editorial office of the journals and requesting a complementary copy together with information about subscriptions, guidelines for authors and the name of the current editor. An excellent source of information for locating the names and addresses of journals of interest to language teachers is Second Language Instruction/Acquisition Abstracts (SLIA) which is published twice a year and contains "a collection of nonevaluative abstracts and dissertation entries which reflect the world's literature in language instruction and areas of related interest"(SLIA, Volume 5, Number 1, July 1995). The address for subscriptions to SLIA is: P.O. Box 22206, San Diego, California 92192-0206; e-mail address
Before you submit.... As you proceed through some issues of the journals mentioned above, you should read the material not only for the kind of content contained therein but also for the organization and style. What is the average length of articles? What is the visual layout? Do authors use subtitles and if so, how are these handled? Who is the intended audience? Almost all journals contain information about the focus of the publication. For example, the Modern Language Journal states that it is "a refereed publication devoted to questions and concerns about the learning and teaching of foreign and second languages; publishes articles, research studies, editorials, reports, book reviews, and professional news and announcements pertaining to modern languages, including TESL." In addition, journals publish detailed information about the referencing style to follow and about what to include with your submission (e.g. number of copies, length, layout, camera-ready graphics). If you are unsure about the suitability of a particular journal, send a letter of inquiry to the editor briefly describing your article. Editors will usually be unequivocal in their response to such inquiries: "I'm sorry, but that topic is not within our scope. Try such-and-such journal;" "We have a thematic issue on that very subject next year; please contact the guest editor, Mrs. So-and-so for additional information."
Once you have chosen a publication, follow the authors' guidelines to the letter. If four copies of a manuscript are requested, then don't submit two. If a two hundred word abstract is specified, don't write four hundred words. Remember that your article will be sent to two or three people for the so-called "blind" review, which means that your name should not appear on the manuscript; be sure to remove by-lines and all headers and footers containing your name. You will find it fruitful to have your manuscript read by one or two colleagues before submission; they can help with feedback about overall readability, organization and proofreading. Pet Peeves of Editors (or Who do these editors think they are, anyway!!??)
You may get the impression that editors of scholarly journals are nothing more than prima donnas whose main mission in life is to prevent you from publishing your work. This feeling may have resulted from one or more refusals from editors. While it is true that editors fulfill a gatekeeping function of sorts in order to maintain a high standard of publication, they are nonetheless ordinary folk (really! no horns!) who in all likelihood maintain their full-time professional responsibilities in addition to their editorship. Most editors are not paid for their editorial work and editorial offices are notoriously understaffed. Thus it is the editor who must carry a good deal of the administrative as well as editorial load.
All this is to say: Editors don't like hassles!! If an author forgets to submit, say, "a list of key words (not more than six) [...] under which the paper may be indexed", as specified by Language Awareness , then the editor must follow up. Similarly, if an author is careless about including page numbers or dates in references, then the editor must contact the author for these items. I remember one article accepted for publication in the CMLR which had some wonderful illustrations. The author did not provide the illustrations camera-ready (expecting, I suppose, that we would do these at the editorial office). The CMLR had no budget for a graphic artist (this is typical of most journals) and so we asked the author to prepare (or have prepared) the illustrations. After four letters back and forth, I finally gave up and returned the article to the author.
But a final note of caution and encouragement: don't be frightened off by editors who routinely say "our rejection rate is 90%." Piffle! The symbiotic relationship between editors and their potential authors is clear: our need for each other is mutual.
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