Writing For Scholarly Publication In English Issues For Nonnative Speakers

This collection of first-person essays by established authors provides a wealth of support and insights for new and experienced academic writers in language education and multicultural studies. Although writing for publication is becoming increasingly important as these fields become both more professional and more competitive, few scholars talk candidly about their experiences negotiating a piece of writing into print. These essays will help researchers, practitioners, and graduate students expand their understanding of what it means--professionally and personally--to write for publication. Carefully crafted, focused, and provocative, the chapters in this volume document authors' experiences with a range of practical, political, and personal issues in writing for publication. Many portray the hardship and struggle that are not obvious in a finished piece of writing. Readers are encouraged to resonate with the events and issues portrayed, and to connect the narratives to their own lives. Practical information, such as contact information for journal and book publishers, manuscript guidelines, and useful books are included in appendices. Although organized thematically, the essays in Writing for Scholarly Publication: Behind the Scenes in Language Education overlap in many ways as each author considers multiple issues: *In the Introduction, the editors discuss key aspects of writing for scholarly publication, such as writing as situated practice, issues faced by newcomers, the construction of personal identity through writing, writing and transparency, facets of the interactive nature of scholarly writing, and intertwined political issues. *Part I focuses on issues and concerns faced by "Newcomers." *In Part II, "Negotiating and Interacting," the essays closely examine the interactions among authors, editors, manuscript reviewers, and collaborators; these interactions tend to be the least often discussed and these essays therefore offer readers fascinating insights into the sensitive social, political, and personal relationships among the many players in the scholarly writing game. *"Identity Construction" is addressed in Part III, where authors share their experiences with and reflections on the ways that professional writing helps them construct their identities as writers and scholars. *The essays in Part IV, "From the Periphery," help redefine what the notion of "periphery" might mean, from a concept with a negative connotation of "outsider" to a positive connotation of active and unconventional participant.

This book draws on the perspectives of authors, supervisors, reviewers and editors to present a rich, nuanced picture of the practices and challenges involved in writing for scholarly publication. Organized into four sections, it brings together international experts and junior scholars from a variety of disciplines to examine both publishing experiences and current research in the field. In doing so, it challenges the view that Native English speakers have a relatively easy ride in this process and that it is only English as an Additional Language (EAL) scholars who experience difficulties. The volume highlights central themes of writing for publication, including mentoring and collaborative writing, the writing experience, text mediation, the review process, journal practices and editorial decision-making, and makes a strong case for taking a more inclusive approach to research in this domain. This edited collection will appeal to students and scholars of applied linguistics, English for academic purposes, academic writing, and second language writing.

Written communication is a type of skill, albeit an important one. Writing is more than a good command of grammar and punctuation, or fluent speaking. Writing is a much more complex task requiring training and practice of many techniques, such as organizing ideas logically, constructing sentences and paragraphs coherently, presenting with appropriate tone in a stylish manner, and executing with ethics and professionalism. Written communication reveals our intelligence of thinking, ability of using words, level of education, and so forth. Good writers are normally creative people with brilliant ideas, a trait that can make capable writers excel in their career development. Regardless of our jobs, we need to write almost everyday. Academic writing is also referred to as scholarly writing. It is the writing produced as part of academic works; it can be an article, a book, a report, a thesis, or the like. Academic works are primarily produced by graduate students and researchers, and they are shared with other students and professionals in their fields. We write at work everyday because writing is a great extension of our voices that conveys our thoughts to many people in the world. Some of them may never contact or meet us. Engineering academic writing is one type of technical writing produced by authors in engineering fields. The approach to writing in this book is presented in the order of time following typical writing sequence. Successful writing starts with a good preparation and outline, continues with drafting and editing, and ends with formatting and proofreading. Admittedly, they often relate to each other and overlap without a clear boundary. One step upstream may affect subsequent steps. For example, when you are working on outline, you may decide to expand your readers and scope of the work. It is difficult to quantify the time required for each step, but in general, more time is needed for a writing task with a greater complexity. By the way, dividing the writing process into different steps may be important to collaborative writing for multiple authors. However, collaborative writing is out of the scope of this book. The book is aimed at non-native English writers such as international students, researchers and staff who are studying and working in English speaking countries. They include many examples for contrast and comparison, a long list of challenging words, and necessary emphasis on cultural difference for dealing with these concerns. Furthermore, an in-depth introduction of copyright and plagiarism at the beginning helps a writer avoid unnecessary challenges from their readers or owners of copyrights. There are many books in technical writing; some are free online, and others are priced for sales. However, there are not many books dedicated to non-native speakers of English. Most international students in English speaking countries are capable of reading and understanding other authors' writing. As an engineering faculty member, however, I have seen many students who need systematic training in writing for their course projects, conference paper, journal articles, and theses. Following the guidelines in this book, the writers will write with clarity and conciseness. The readers of this book are not limited to non-native English speakers either. All postsecondary and graduate students may find that this book balances between writing theory and simplicity. Students and researchers in engineering schools as well as professionals working in engineering industries may find valuable writing techniques in this book. It is deemed useful to new or experienced writers; they should be able to further convey complex technical information in a simple way. Motivated students can use the book as self-study materials to improve their writing skills. The book can be also used as teaching materials for both undergraduate and graduate students in engineering discipline, especially for non-native speakers of English.

This book analyses the English writing and publishing experiences of 118 scholars from 18 Chinese universities from a social-cognitive perspective. It addresses the challenges and strategies multilingual scholars, particularly Chinese academics, reported in the process of writing and publishing in English. This allows the author to present a taxonomy of journal article writing strategies that correspond to the lived experiences of scholars in China, but which can also be applied to other contexts in the world. This book offers a step-by-step analysis of ethnographic case studies, insights and implications for teaching practice, as well as suggested directions for future research. It will be of particular interest to scholars in the fields of ERPP (English for Research Publication Purposes) as well as students and scholars of applied linguistics more broadly.

This book brings together policies, practices, and identities pertaining to doctoral publication through an in-depth longitudinal multiple-case study of doctoral students’ scholarly publishing endeavors. Informed by the theoretical frameworks of neoliberalism and activity theory, it examines doctoral students’ scholarly publishing activities within the context of their doctoral studies. It demonstrates how policies, practices, and identities intersect with each other and reveals how policies may shape doctoral students’ publishing practices and evolving identities. Postgraduates, researchers, and practitioners in the fields of applied linguistics and doctoral education will find it of particular interest. It is also a valuable guide for doctoral students seeking to have their work published and supervisors looking to support their doctoral students’ publishing efforts.

In this guide to academic writing the author takes the reader step-by-step through the writing and publication process-from choosing a subject, developing content that will engage others, to submitting the final manuscript for publication.

It can be a challenge writing in a language that is not your native tongue. Constructing academic essays, dissertations and research articles in this second or foreign language is even more challenging, yet across the globe thousands of academics and students do so, some out of choice, some out of necessity. This book looks at a major issue within the field of English for Academic Purposes (EAP). It focuses on the issues confronting non-native-English-speaking academics, scholars and students, who face increasing pressure to write and publish in English, now widely acknowledged as the academic lingua franca. Questions of identity, access, pedagogy and empowerment naturally arise. This book looks at both student and professional academic writers, using qualitative text analysis, quantitative questionnaire data, corpus investigations and ethnographic approaches to searchingly examine issues central to the EAP field.