26.684, Review: Applied Linguistics: Curry, Lillis (2013)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-26-684. Mon Feb 02 2015. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 26.684, Review: Applied Linguistics: Curry, Lillis (2013)

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Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2015 15:21:22
From: Pejman Habibie [phabibie at uwo.ca, habibiepezhman at gmail.com]
Subject: A Scholar's Guide to Getting Published in English

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=28871750


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/24/24-4791.html

AUTHOR: Mary Jane Curry
AUTHOR: Theresa  Lillis
TITLE: A Scholar's Guide to Getting Published in English
SUBTITLE: Critical Choices and Practical Strategies
PUBLISHER: Multilingual Matters
YEAR: 2013

REVIEWER: Pejman Habibie, University of Western Ontario

Review's Editors: Malgorzata Cavar and Sara Couture

INTRODUCTION

“A Scholar’s Guide To Getting Published In English” is a guide book aimed at
demystifying occluded or semi-occluded aspects of scholarly writing and
publication for academics, especially those who have English as an additional
language (EAL) and belong to Kachru’s (1985) outer and expanding circles where
English is not the dominant language. The book consists of eighteen chapters
including the introduction. Apart from the introduction and the conclusion,
the remaining chapters have a unified structure and identical constituent
sections. They begin with a section called chapter focus. This section
presents the overall theme which is elaborated on in subsequent sections.
Based on thematic orientation, examples are presented and commented on in all
chapters. The concluding sections of chapters are “thinking about your
experience”, “suggestions for further action”, “useful resources”, “related
research”, and “information box.” These sections provide the reader with extra
information on related research and issues and help the reader to see their
own experiences in the discussed framework.

SUMMARY

The book begins with an overview of issues concerning scholarly production in
today’s academia. In this chapter, Curry and Lillis underline the significance
and the challenging nature of publication in English-medium journals
especially for multilingual scholars. The authors also highlight the
objectives of the book and what distinguishes it from parallel publications. 
They explain how related issues are discussed in a broader sociopolitical
framework rather than a merely rhetorical or linguistic one, and where they
have arrived at the notions, principles, and examples presented in the book.
They clarify the terms that have been adopted in referring to contested
concepts as well as the genres and academic disciplines. Finally, they explain
the framework adopted in subsequent chapters and how this guidebook can
support the practices of scholars.

In chapter one, “Identifying your personal interests,” Curry and Lillis focus
on the set of decisions that EAL scholars have to make in their publication
practices concerning the choice of the academic communities they want to
address and contribute to. They draw upon a scholar’s personal story about
writing in academia to demonstrate the multifaceted nature of this
decision-making process. They also explain how the term “international
publication” is interpreted outside of the Anglophone center.

The next two chapters concern the key role of governmental and institutional
assessment criteria in survival and promotion of scholars and their decisions
for publication in inter/national contexts as well as different languages. In
chapter four, “Entering academic conversations,” the authors focus on the
significance of academic conferences in developing an understanding of current
 disciplinary discussions and formation of local and international research
networks.  

 In the following two chapters, Curry and Lillis point out that attention to
issues presented in scholarly journals indicates disciplinary concerns and
discussions and contribute to targeting the right journal and fashioning the
manuscript for intended discourse communities as well.  

Chapter seven concerns the significance of acknowledging and citing other
scholar’s work and the role of citation in contextualizing one’s research and
relating it to ongoing disciplinary conversations. The authors define
integral, non-integral citation, and quotation in scholarly texts and explain
discursive reasons behind each. 

In the following two chapters, the authors compare potential pros and cons of
publishing book chapters with those of journal articles and the role of timing
in writing and submitting. Using excerpts from an online call for book
chapters, they familiarize the reader with how book chapters are solicited by
editors, and raise their awareness of intricacies and problems involved in the
publication process such as timelines, delays, etc. They exemplify a scholar’s
experience in contributing a chapter to an edited book and how they developed
a conference poster into a full book chapter. They also present the trajectory
of a co-authored article toward publication, and demonstrate the unexpected
circumstances that might influence the publication process time-wise. 

In chapter ten, the authors discuss the significance of material aids such as
research funding, bibliographic resources, and travel funding in the
publication process, and their key role in obtaining access to intellectual
and social supports such as research networks and literacy brokers. Using EAL
scholars' experiences and accounts, they also point out how electronic and
bibliographic management programs can provide scholars with useful
information.

Curry and Lillis investigate EAL scholars' decision-making regarding the
language(s) that they use to address different academic communities in chapter
eleven. They also refer to different approaches to translation and publishing
parallel texts for different academic communities as strategies that EAL
scholars adopt in their publication practices. 

Chapters twelve and thirteen concern the significance of local and
transnational networks in the publication process and coauthorship. The
authors discuss how academic research networks develop over time and how
forging them and participating in them provide scholars with access to various
material and social resources necessary for academic productivity. They draw
on established and novice scholars' accounts to demonstrate a range of
experiences that they had in co-authorship with their colleagues, supervisors,
and students. 

The authors discuss the types and limitations of support that academic and
literacy brokers can provide, and the significance of negotiation with editors
and reviewers in chapters fourteen and fifteen. To further explain and clarify
submission and negotiation practices, they also examine manuscript submission
guidelines from two academic journals, draw upon an EAL scholar’s account
about preparing a manuscript for submission and another scholar’s cover letter
to an editor, and also present a cover letter for a revised manuscript. 

In chapter sixteen, “Producing a journal”, Curry and Lillis draw on guidelines
from a journal website and scholars’ accounts to demonstrate  how academic
journals invite reviewers and describe a range of practices, opportunities,
and benefits that is offered and gained through reviewing. They foreground
difficult choices and important decisions that scholars encounter in assuming
reviewing and editing roles. They also present an overview of journal
mentorship and support programs for writers. In the concluding chapter, the
authors discuss the changing nature of global publication and reiterate the
aims and goals of writing this guide. 

EVALUATION

In recent years, the publication industry has witnessed a surge in the
production of guidebooks on scholarly writing and publishing. The support
provided in most of these resources is limited to technical and structural
aspects of academic writing and publishing. What makes this book outstanding
is the fact that it adopts a more holistic approach to academic publication
and steps beyond technical aspects that stand in this publication secondary to
more significant sociopolitical  and geolinguistic issues involved, especially
in EAL scholars’ publication practices. The book encapsulates such concerns
and intricacies and provides a structured, strategic, and easy-to-understand
approach to coping with them.

In chapters four, twelve, and thirteen, the authors explain 
pre-/post-conference procedures and enumerate some of the merits of 
collaborative work, such as, critical perspective on one's writing, sharing
authorship responsibilities, and developing interpersonal communication. Such
information enlightens novice EAL writers as to how such academic fora and
practices facilitate their scholarly socialization and, therefore, contribute
to their inter/national visibility.

In chapters two, three, five, six, and seven, Curry and Lillis demonstrate the
inner-workings of organizational evaluation systems and enumerate factors such
as institutional assessment measures, geographical location, index rankings,
and number of citations as the criteria that influence scholar’s decisions in
the submission process. They discuss the status of academic productivity as a
pivotal evaluative factor in such reward systems. An exploration of such
measures contributes to EAL scholars’ informed decisions about the publication
practices within their academic context. They explain American and
international citation indexes, the concept of ''the impact factor'' as a
quantitative index of credibility for a publication, as well as different
types of publishers and journals such as university press, open access, and
predatory publishers. They also discuss academic, personal, contextual, as
well as political issues involved in citation decisions and practices of
scholars. Such discussion raises EAL writers’s awareness of policies behind
the existence and development of those organizations and measures, and
foregrounds  a power dynamics and scholarly rivalries within academic camps
and behind the scenes. In chapter seventeen, the authors draw on a campaign in
Taiwan to indicate critical resistance to the pressures of  publishing in
English-medium journals. They also refer to the open access movement and its
role in the free dissemination of knowledge.

In chapters ten and eleven, Curry and Lillis highlight geolinguistic
disadvantages of EAL scholars and shed light on the difficulties that these
academics encounter in getting access to material aids, such as, funding and
academic resources. They explore some of the strategies through which EAL
scholars gain access to such possibilities inside or outside their own
contexts. They also draw on EAL scholars' experiences to indicate tensions
that these scholars face when thinking and writing in a local language and in
a foreign language.

The experiences presented make  the accounts more tangible and the guidance
more effective for the reader. The comments provided by the authors clarify
the opaque aspects of examples. The “thinking about your experience” section
generalizes the theme to the reader’s situation, helps the reader reanalyze
their own issues, and informs their decisions in their future practices. Last
but not least, relevant information provided in “useful resources”, “related
research”, and “information box” sections contributes to the development of
researchers' knowledge base in this domain and is among the strengths of the
book.

On the other hand, the orientation towards writing and publishing practices of
peripheral EAL scholars, rooted in the ever-increasing dominance of English
over academia and consequent, so-called, geolinguistic disadvantage of EAL
scholars, has resulted in a biased approach to research and material
development in this domain. This biased view, although hidden in the title of
the book, is evident and mentioned in the focus, scope, and content of the
book. Focusing on EAL scholars and marginalizing practices of scholars that
happen to have English as their first language gives the impression that
Kachru’s Inner Circle (1985) (where English is the dominant language) were a
safe haven in which academic publication happened naturally and willingly. It
should be noted that academic English has no native speakers and in the
current research world the difference is no longer between Anglophones and
non-Anglophones but between experienced researchers and novice ones (Mauranen
et al., 2010; Swales, 2004).  Scholarly productivity cannot be taken for
granted by virtue of native speaker status or membership in prestigious
institutions of higher education (Belcher, 2007; Ferguson et al., 2011;
Uzuner, 2008). Consequently, in the  globalized academic environment, guides
to getting published in English need to adopt a more inclusive approach in
demonstrating the challenging nature of academic publication for all scholars
as well as presenting more comprehensive strategies. 

REFERENCES

Belcher, D. D. (2007). Seeking acceptance in an English-only research world.
Journal of Second Language Writing, 16(1), 1-22. doi:
10.1016/j.jslw.2006.12.001

Ferguson, G., Perez-Llantada, C., and Plo, R. (2011). English as an
international language of scientific publication: A study of attitudes. World
Englishes, 30(1), 41-59. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-971X.2010.01656.x

Kachru, B. B. (1985). Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism: The
English language in the outer circle. In R. Quirk and H. Widdowson (Eds.),
English in the World (pp. 11-34). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mauranen, A., Hynninen, N., and Ranta, E. (2010). English as an academic
lingua franca: The ELFA project. English for Specific Purposes, 29(3),
183-190. doi: 10.1016/j.esp.2009.10.001
Swales, J. M. (2004). Research genres: Explorations and applications. New
York: Cambridge University Press. 

Uzuner, S. (2008). Multilingual scholars’ participation in core/global
academic communities: A literature review. Journal of English for Academic
Purposes, 7(4), 250-263. doi: 10.1016/j.jeap.2008.10.007


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Pejman Habibie is a research and teaching assistant in the Faculty of
Education at The University of Western Ontario, Canada. His research interests
are English for professional academic purposes (EPAP), academic writing and
publishing, genre analysis, and doctoral education.








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