Writing for publication in English

Publishing your research is a high-stakes matter for academics working in the university sector around the world particularly as it's often linked to institutional status and promotion prospects. This session considers issues around the predominance of English language (sometimes called the 'academic lingua franca') in the realm of academic publication and asks how speakers languages other than English can navigate the processes involved.

We'll discuss ways in which to choose suitable publication outlets, the peer review process itself, looking at the criteria international journals ask their reviewers to focus on in their decision-making, and we'll look at examples of the kind of feedback reviewers might provide. We'll also look at the process from research to submission focussing on practical research writing aspects such as structure of an article or the benefits or otherwise of using, for instance, translators or 'literacy brokers' (Lillis and Curry e.g. 2006).

Overall, the aim of the session is to provide a space where participants can discuss their experiences and explore strategies and techniques that might help in navigating the many twists and turns along the journey from doing research to being published in an international arena.

Dr. Fiona English is Honorary Senior Research Associate in the Centre for Applied Linguistics at the UCL Institute of Education. She has been working in the field of language, communication and linguistics for many years in both research and teaching and has published books, chapters and articles reflecting her broad experience in the field. Her work has always revolved around the field of Applied Linguistics in relation to education and learning. Since her early days as a TEFL teacher, she has worked in a range of different contexts including researching language across the curriculum at the National Foundation for Educational Research, leading the London School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Learning and Teaching Unit and coordinating and teaching on the MAs in TESOL and Applied Linguistics at London Metropolitan University. She has been external examiner and consultant on several university programmes in English Language, EAP and TESOL as well as developing and delivering programmes overseas such as on summer schools in Pakistan, Hong Kong and Uzbekistan.

Fiona’s expertise encompasses a number of interrelated specialisms: TESOL and language education, forensic linguistics and language testing and last but not least, academic literacies, genre and multimodality which was the subject of her PhD. She has recently been involved in an ongoing series of workshops and seminars exploring new ways of writing at university based around her concept of ‘regenring’ and in 2018 co-edited two special editions of the Journal of Writing in Creative Practice which showcase work in that area. She has authored three books: the monograph on the affordances of genres, Student Writing and Genre: Reconfiguring academic knowledge, and three books with Tim Marr which focus on promoting linguistics as a core field of social and educational relevance: Two editions of Why Do Linguistics? Reflective linguistics and the study of language, the first in 2015 and the second in 2023 and, in 2019, a book for specifically aimed at language teachers, Rethinking TESOL in Diverse Settings: The language and the teacher in a time of change, all published by Bloomsbury.