Academic Publishing : Processes and Practices for Aspiring Researchers

This book focuses on the topic of academic publishing. It discusses the mounting, serious problems that researchers, particularly new researchers, encounter when trying to publish their research. The book addresses the issues of publishing as well as the salient factors militating against academic publication and the mitigating factors encouraging academic publication. It provides potential solutions, suggestions, and strategies for overcoming some of these problems.

Growing research output from Southeast Asia including Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and China reveals the struggles that many authors have to confront when attempting to publish their work in reputable journals. In both South Africa and other parts of Africa, academic researchers are beginning to show strong evidence of credible academic output. These researchers all need valid outlets for their work and the security that authentic peer review brings to the reviewing process. In the fields of education, social sciences, and professional practices, e.g., architecture and law, recent years have seen the emergence of new outlets for practitioners’ research outputs in areas such as one’s own practice, self-reflection, and narrative inquiry. These outlets are discussed in this book. The book also discusses the malign influence of predatory publications in detail.

This book will be beneficial to university academics, postgraduate students, Ph.D. supervisors, and new researchers.

David Coniam is Head of Research, PeopleCert, Athens, where he heads up research and validation into English language assessment. Prior to this he was Chair Professor and at The Education University of Hong Kong, where he was a teacher educator, working with teachers in Hong Kong primary and secondary schools. His main research interests are in language assessment, academic writing and publishing, and language teaching methodology.

Peter Falvey is a teacher educator. A former Head of Department in the Faculty of Education  at the University of Hong Kong, he currently holds an honorary professorial role with the Education University of Hong Kong. His main research interests are in language assessment, first and second language writing methodology, and text linguistics.