Job Discussion Forums

[Nolan Chance]

[bookworm2]

Interesting points about research quality! Of course, varied quality is an issue with all genres of writing. Some pieces are better than others. Research is no different.

Universities rank research on a scale of 1-star to 4-star, 4-star being the highest. If it has international impact, i.e. positively received by scholars around the world, then a piece of research (book, article or chapter) is more likely to gain a higher ranking.

It�s generally considered good for researchers to get their articles published in international peer-reviewed journals (as opposed to local or regional journals that don�t send submissions out for peer-review).

Peer-reviewing helps by providing the editor with expert advice. Should the article be accepted with minor revisions, rejected with encouragement to revise or just rejected? Most articles can be improved after gaining sensitive intelligent feedback from experts in the field, so authors can learn a lot from the process.

Typically, the editors of top journals send submitted articles out to two or three peer-reviewers to get their opinions before making a decision. Maybe only one in five or one in ten of the articles submitted is eventually accepted for publication (depending on the journal).

Let's do the mathematics. If there are eight articles in the issue of a journal, and each has had two or three different peer-reviewers, then it means that maybe the editor has had the direct help of 20 experts with regard to those 8 articles (as well as indirect help from peer-reviewers who rejected articles - another 80 experts perhaps, if the acceptance rate is 1 in 5). So, it's a big operation involving lots of thinking work.

Contrast this with the case of a small college journal produced by a well-meaning editor working on their own and with limited submissions to choose from. Of course, you can find gems in little journals and mistakes in big ones, but the more extensive quality procedures employed by the big ones inevitably tip the balance in their favour.

Some of the biggest international ELT journals include: TESOL Quarterly, ELT Journal, Language Teaching Research, System and English Today. Good open access journals that also have a peer-reviewing system include Asian EFL Journal. Several researchers active in Oman have published in this.

Anyway, keep reading critically! Good luck!

[While I was out]

This is a very good thread, thank you for reviving it.

[Nolan Chance]

[bookworm2]

I think we can all agree that editors should edit. Sometimes they don't and that can certainly cause damage. There may be various reasons for this, including lack of time, resources, training or quality procedures as well as lack of expertise in a particular field or lack of competence. However, I am not interested in bad research (sorry, I just don't want to read it) and I am not thinking of any particular examples.

We live in an age when anyone can publish online instantly (as I am now). We need to be able to edit ourselves. When engaged in academic writing, though, we also need others to help us.

Researchers prefer peer-review procedures. Even if manuscripts are rejected initially or submitted to endless revisions, we can recognise that the end product is more likely to be published research of reasonable quality that will be read with genuine interest. If it has been peer-reviewed, it is less likely to attract ridicule, but generally nothing is forgotten quicker than bad research.

As I said in my earlier post, we are more likely to find good research in international peer-reviewed journals, which is why I recommend them.