Journal of Language and Culture
Introducing ‘‘Journal of Language and Culture”
The Journal of Language and Culture (JLC) is a multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal published monthly by Academic Journals (www.academicjournals.org/JLC). JLC is dedicated to increasing the depth of research across all areas language and culture.
Call for Papers
JLC welcomes the submission of manuscripts that meet the general criteria of significance and scientific excellence in this subject area, and will publish:
·Original articles in basic and applied research
·Case report
We invite you to submit your manuscript(s) to jlc.journal@gmail.com for publication in the next issue. Our objective is to inform authors of the decision on their manuscript(s) within four weeks of submission. Following acceptance, a paper will normally be published in the next issue. Instruction for authors and other details are available on our website; http://www.academicjournals.org/JLC/Instruction.htm .
JLC is an Open Access Journal
One key request of researchers across the world is unrestricted access to research publications. Open access gives a worldwide audience larger than that of any subscription-based journal ad thus increases the visibility and impact of published work. It also enhances indexing, retrieval power and eliminates the need for permissions to reproduce and distribute content. JLC is fully committed to the Open Access Initiative and will provide free access to all articles as soon as they are published.
Evueh Daniel
Editorial Assistant
Journal of Language and Culture (JLC)
E-mail: jlc.journal@gmail.com
This link from the Chronicle forums may also be of interest. Apparently, publication fees are rather more common in the STEM fields, including some very credible journals (and also many scams). I also know that they are common in medicine: the rationale seems to be that even subscription-based journals allow access to their articles after a short while in the interest of public health, so they need alternative sources of income to support themselves.
Are you sure it wasn’t along the lines of ‘Professora De Stefani contributed…’? 😉
I guess there’s no harm in that, though. These people are in the business of selling books so they will do their best to sell them. However, I see no incentive to do their marketing for them: as stipulated in my contract, I am in it only for the acedemic credit and recognition.
Lots of useful info, thanks Juup and Achilleas! Coincidentally, some time ago my employers received something similar that read:
Dear Whomever It May Concern,
I am contacting you regarding a newly published ….you may be interested in. Magdalena De Stefani contributed to ….., edited by …… This unique publication would be an excellent addition to your institution’s library collection. …
And then it went on to detail the various ways in which it could be purchased.
I still have no idea how they found my employers’ emails though I suppose that can be fairly easy. I was so embarrassed that they would think it was me who had given the publishers their email addresses…
After posting the previous comment, I checked my inbox where I found an example of yet another gradation between the pay-to-be-published and the more traditional publication modes. The following has been excerpted from an email message by one of the publishers that I have worked with (they are not many, but I will nevertheless refrain from pointing fingers):
Even if one were of a cynical predisposition, one would have to concede that these people are not interested in my money.
Just to add to what Juup said, two indicators that are usually associated with the better journals are a relatively high impact factor and a membership in COPE or another similar organisation.
The impact factor is a metric that shows how many times, on average, someone cited an article which was published in the journal in the preceding two years. Many of the better journals will typically display their impact factor in the home page.
The Committee On Publication Ethics (COPE) brings together journals from various academic fields, which adhere to common standards of peer review and research integrity. This includes most of the major publishers, such as Oxford Univerity Press, Taylor and Francis, Elsevier and other.
This is not to suggest that journals which share both a high IF and COPE membership will always be better than journals that don’t, but I find these criteria helpful as a rough guide to the quality of a journal.
Hi Eljee/Others,
I ‘see’ the following categories of journals (others please expand on or make adjustments to my list):
International peer-reviewed journals on the ThomsonReuters Master Journal list. Prestigeous. Familiar ones include TESOL Quarterly; Applied Linguistics; Language Teaching Research. Review process can be quite brutal, but will of course vary depending on discipline and journal. Libraries have to pay to get access.
International peer-reviewed but falling just short of the ThomsonReuters quality thresholds or they haven’t attempted to meet the specific criteria. May still be prestigeous. Examples include Professional Development in Education; Journal of Language Learning. Review process can be brutal, but this ‘category’ of journals may be slightly more realistic for a new author. Libraries have to pay to get access.
Various online journals, some of which are reasonably good. May be a good first step. Example: http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/ There is still a conservativeness in the academic journal business; online journals are still not fully ‘accepted’. Of course, that may quickly change. I do think there are probably some good ones out there. Open in a good way, so should not be confused with the Open ‘pay to get published’ category (see further down).
Reguional journals. I am less familiar with this segment; most regions of the world have their own set of journals which, locally, may be quite acceptable publishing outlets. I imagine the level/quality will vary widely. E.g. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research… however, not a good example as this journal is now on the Thomson/Reuters master list. Hah… my categories are overlapping 🙂
Open Access journals. Maybe these are touted as benefitting countries and universities that cannot afford to subscribe to the more established international journals. However, in reality I think they are exploiting the ‘Open’ metaphor to get money from the very countries/entities they claim to benefit. That is, a young academic from resource poor country X, located in resource poor country Y, may write an article which isn’t particularly good (because all the ‘better’ academics have left for more resourceful contexts) and then when she gets her article accepted by the Open Access journal she asks her resource poor University to pay the 800 or so dollar publication fee. If the University says no then she tries to raise the money herself. In the end she is fooled as the journal she publishes in has no credibility in the international world of academia. Example: The Bentham Open journals (lots and lots of titles) http://www.benthamscience.com/open/
Note that each Bentham Open journal has a very international looking editorial panel… I speculate that this is because beginning academics everywhere in the world – whether resource poor or rich – are flattered when approached and asked to edit or be on the editorial panel of a journal. Note, if you are on the editorial panel you can get as discount when publishing – LOL.
Juup
Juup’s point, I think, is that among the many good quality open access journals that operate a rigorous peer-review, there are a number of outfits that operate on a for-profit basis and are not regarded as ‘prestigious’ publications (whatever that might mean). Asking for a publication fee is not all that uncommon even among ‘prestigious’ journals; after all *someone* must bear whatever costs go into producing the journal. However one needs to be aware of shady practices, and to carefully weigh the benefits of publication against the cost.
This discussion on the topic may be of interest, too.
http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,79741.0.html
Can you clarify this Juup? I’m not quite sure I quite understand what is implied with “Open Access” journals (i.e. pay to be published types) vs. accessibility to a wider audience (i.e. universities that can’t afford the subscriptions). This pay to be published type of route wasn’t mentioned in any of the humanities training sessions or JRUL info sessions. For me, at least, finding a suitable journal still feels a little like online dating (i.e. find a journal you like and think you got a chance with then go for it and hope for the best).
Hmm…ok the “Open Access” bit doesn’t quite fit the metaphor but you know what I mean?!
Note that this is a ‘pay to get published’ journal. The fee is 550 dollars 🙂 It is instructive that any reference to this fee only appears at the very end of the instructions to authors. In this regard, beware of any journal using the phrase ‘Open Access’.
Juup