Important Advice for Potential MITESOL Journal Authors
- Read articles in TESOL Quarterly, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, or Language Learning to get a sense of the scholarly style we prefer. Also, be sure to read the sample articles provided in the Submissions Guidelines. You can also read through the Selected Proceedings of the MITESOL Conference here.
- It is each author’s responsibility to uphold the strictest standards of academic integrity with regard to quotation, paraphrase, citation, and correct reference.
- In the interest of space, avoid lengthy appendices unless requested. If you used a questionnaire or other data-collection instrument, please describe it in the text and/or provide a reference to a website.
- Lesson plans alone will not be accepted, but a description of and research-based rationale for a new or unusual teaching technique will be considered.
- Seminar papers may be a good starting point for articles, but they should go beyond a literature review or summary of a topic to make an argument that challenges readers to think differently about a topic.
- Be careful not to make claims that you cannot support. Please do not claim that you have “proven” something if you’ve only shown a trend in a small sample. Also, theories cannot be proven; they can either be disproved or supported.
- Avoid using the word “significant” unless you have conducted statistical significance tests.
- Be careful to distinguish between the “results” and “discussion” sections of research papers. Only the results of your analyses should be in the “results” section. Save the interpretation and discussion of the results for the “discussion” section.
- Expand all acronyms at their first use, thus: “In second language (L2) writing….”
- Avoid culturally insensitive or inappropriate terms.
- Ask a colleague to review your work for clarity, grammar, and typos. Manuscripts with poor grammar, multiple typographic errors, and a verbose or incoherent style will not be accepted.
This advice is intended to help you submit manuscripts that will be accepted. As discussed elsewhere, you will work with an editor to fine-tune your manuscript after it is accepted. If you have any questions about these suggestions, please contact one of the editors.
Rights of Authors and ScholarWorks@GVSU
When you submit your article, it will undergo the Journal’s editorial decision process. The Journal is not under any obligation to publish the article. If the Journal agrees to publish the article, in order to expedite the publishing process and enable the Journal to circulate your work to the fullest extent, you will turn copyright over to MITESOL Journal, Grand Valley State University, and ScholarWorks@GVSU. You will retain generous personal-use permissions.
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