Guide for Authors
The
Journal of Second Language
Writing is devoted to publishing theoretically grounded reports of research and discussions of central issues in second and foreign
language writing and writing instruction. Some areas of interest are personal characteristics and attitudes of L2 writers, L2 writers'
composing processes, features of L2 writers' texts, readers' responses to L2 writing, assessment/evaluation of L2 writing, contexts (cultural,
social, political, institutional) for L2 writing, and any other topic clearly relevant to L2 writing and/or writing instruction. Responses
to published articles are also welcome for the Dialogue section of the journal. The
Journal of Second Language Writing is published
four times a year.
Contact details for submission
Authors are requested
to submit their papers electronically by using the
Journal of Second Language Writing online submission and review web site
(
http://ees.elsevier.com/seclan ). This site will guide authors stepwise through the submission process. Authors are requested
to submit the text, tables, and artwork in electronic form to this address. Authors who are unable to provide an electronic version or
have other circumstances that prevent online submission are requested to contact the Editors prior to submission to discuss alternative
options; email: Rosa Manchon at
jslw@um.es or Christine Tardy at
ctardy@depaul.edu. The Publisher and Editors
regret that they are not able to consider submissions that do not follow these procedures.
Ethics in publishing
For information on Ethics
in publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication see
http://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics and
http://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines.
Conflict of interest
All authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict
of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations within three years of beginning
the submitted work that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work. See also
http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.
Informed consent
Researchers submitting manuscripts to the
Journal of Second Language Writing
are expected to obtain prior informed consent from their research participants as appropriate.
Submission declaration
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except
in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication
elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was
carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any
other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.
Changes to authorship
This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts:
Before
the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names,
must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name
should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they
agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the
author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the
corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform the Journal Editors
of any such requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed.
After
the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published
in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.
Copyright
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' (for more
information on this and copyright see
http://www.elsevier.com/copyright). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest
possible dissemination of information. An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together
with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement.
Subscribers may reproduce tables of
contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher
is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations
(please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions). If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s)
must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use
by authors in these cases: please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions.
Retained author rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) retain certain rights; for details you are referred
to:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
Role of the funding source
You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article
and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data;
in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement
then this should be stated. Please see
http://www.elsevier.com/funding.
Funding body agreements and policies
Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose
articles appear in journals published by Elsevier, to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions
of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies.
Open access
This journal offers you the option of making your article freely available to all via the ScienceDirect
platform. To prevent any conflict of interest, you can only make this choice after receiving notification that your article has been
accepted for publication. The fee of $3,000 excludes taxes and other potential author fees such as color charges. In some cases, institutions
and funding bodies have entered into agreement with Elsevier to meet these fees on behalf of their authors. Details of these agreements
are available at
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies. Authors of accepted articles, who wish to take advantage of this
option, should complete and submit the order form (available at
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/openaccessform.pdf). Whatever
access option you choose, you retain many rights as an author, including the right to post a revised personal version of your article
on your own website. More information can be found here:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
Language and language services
Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted,
but not a mixture of these). Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission
please visit
http://webshop.elsevier.com/languageservices
or our customer support site at
http://support.elsevier.com
for more information.
Submission
Submission to this journal proceeds
totally online and you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of your files. The system automatically converts Word
source files to a single PDF file of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript Word
source files are converted to PDF files at submission for the review process, these Word source files are needed for further processing
after acceptance. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail
removing the need for a paper trail.
Review Policy
As this journal has adopted a double blind reviewing policy, please
remove all identifying features from the paper itself by ensuring that no author's name appears in the main text, in-text citations,
reference list, or any running header.
General
Manuscripts
should be 15-30 pages in length. Submissions to the Dialogue section should be no more than 10 pages in length and respond to an article
published in the JSLW. All manuscripts should be prepared according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association
(6th edition) and should be double-spaced.
Use of wordprocessing software
General Points:We accept most wordprocessing formats, but MS Word is preferred. Always keep a backup copy of the electronic
file for reference and safety. Save your files using the default extension of the program used.
It is important that the file be saved
in the native format of the Word wordprocessor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple
as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the wordprocessor's
options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. Do not embed "graphically
designed" equations or tables, but prepare these using the wordprocessor's facility. When preparing tables, if you are using a table
grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns.
The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with
Elsevier:
http://www.elsevier.com/guidepublication). Do not import the figures into the text file but, instead, indicate
their approximate locations directly in the electronic text and on the manuscript. See also the section on Electronic illustrations.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the "spell-check" and "grammar-check" functions of your wordprocessor.
Article structure
Subdivision of article
Divide
your article into clearly defined sections. Each subsection should be given a brief subheading. Each heading should appear on its own
separate line.
Introduction
State the objectives of the work and
provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
Material and methods
Provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. Methods already
published should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described.
Results
Results should be clear and concise.
Discussion
This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often
appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.
Conclusions
The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of
a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.
Appendicies
If there
is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc.
Essential title
page information
•
Title.
Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems.
Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
•
Author names and affiliations.
Where the family name may be
ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was
done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front
of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the e-mail
address of each author.
•
Corresponding author.
Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages
of refereeing and publication, also post-publication.
Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code) are provided
in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address. Contact details must be kept up to date by the corresponding author.
•
Present/permanent address.
If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at
the time, a 'Present address' (or 'Permanent address') may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the
author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.
Abstract
A concise and factual abstract is required (maximum length 200 words). The abstract should state
briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separate from the article,
so it must be able to stand alone. References should therefore be avoided, but if essential, they must be cited in full, without reference
to the reference list. Non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first
mention in the abstract itself.
Graphical abstract
A Graphical abstract
is optional and should summarize the contents of the article in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide
readership online. Authors must provide images that clearly represent the work described in the article. Graphical abstracts should be
submitted as a separate file in the online submission system. Image size: Please provide an image with a minimum of 531 × 1328
pixels (h × w) or proportionally more. The image should be readable at a size of 5 × 13 cm using a regular screen resolution
of 96 dpi. Preferred file types: TIFF, EPS, PDF or MS Office files. See
http://www.elsevier.com/graphicalabstracts for examples.
Authors can make use of Elsevier's Illustration and Enhancement service to ensure the best presentation of their images also in accordance
with all technical requirements:
Illustration
Service.
Highlights
Highlights are mandatory for this journal.
They consist of a short collection of bullet points that convey the core findings of the article and should be submitted in a separate
file in the online submission system. Please use 'Highlights' in the file name and include 3 to 5 bullet points (maximum 85 characters,
including spaces, per bullet point). See
http://www.elsevier.com/highlights for examples.
Keywords
Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords, avoiding general and plural terms
and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, "and," "of"). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the
field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.
Abbreviations
Define abbreviations that are not standard in this field at their first occurrence in the article: in the abstract but also in
the main text after it. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article.
Acknowledgements
Collate acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include
them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g.,
providing language help, writing assistance or proof reading the article, etc.).
Citations
Citations may be given of lexical material from languages other than English; however, citations from languages not employing a Roman
alphabet must be given in a Romanized transliteration or in a transcription which uses standard symbols available in the International
Phonetic Alphabet. The Charis SIL IPA font is preferred for the presentation of IPA symbols (for more information, please visit:
http://scripts.sil.org/CharisSILfont
).
Footnotes
Footnotes should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively
throughout the article, using superscript Arabic numbers. Many wordprocessors build footnotes into the text, and this feature may be
used. Should this not be the case, indicate the position of footnotes in the text and present the footnotes themselves separately at
the end of the article. Do not include footnotes in the Reference list.
Table footnotes
Indicate each footnote in a
table with a superscript lowercase letter.
Artwork
Electronic artwork
General points
•Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of
your original artwork.
•Save text in illustrations as "graphics" or enclose the font.
•Only use the following fonts
in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Times, Symbol.
•Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the
text.
•Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
•Provide all illustrations as separate files.
•Provide
captions to illustrations separately.
•Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.
A detailed guide
on electronic artwork is available on our website:
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Color artwork
Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office
files) and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures then Elsevier will ensure,
at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in color on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether
or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version.
For color reproduction in print, you will receive information
regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate your preference for color: in print or
on the Web only. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Please note: Because of technical complications which can arise by converting color figures to 'gray scale' (for the printed version
should you not opt for color in print) please submit in addition usable black and white versions of all the color illustrations.
Figure captions
Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached
to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (
not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep
text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.
Tables
Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place footnotes to tables below the
table body and indicate them with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that
the data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.
Web references
As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any
further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references
can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.
References in a special issue
Please ensure that the words 'this issue' are added to any references
in the list (and any citations in the text) to other articles in the same Special Issue.
Reference management software
This journal has standard templates available in key reference management packages
EndNote (
http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp) and Reference Manager (
http://refman.com/support/rmstyles.asp).
Using plug-ins to wordprocessing packages, authors only need to select the appropriate journal template when preparing their article
and the list of references and citations to these will be formatted according to the journal style which is described below.
Reference style
Text: Citations in the text should follow the referencing style used by the
American Psychological Association. You are referred to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition,
ISBN 978-1-4338-0561-5, copies of which may be ordered from
http://books.apa.org/books.cfm?id=4200067 or APA Order Dept.,
P.O.B. 2710, Hyattsville, MD 20784, USA or APA, 3 Henrietta Street, London, WC3E 8LU, UK. Details concerning this referencing style can
also be found at
http://linguistics.byu.edu/faculty/henrichsenl/apa/apa01.html.
List: references should be arranged
first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same
year must be identified by the letters 'a', 'b', 'c', etc., placed after the year of publication.
Examples:
Reference
to a journal publication:
Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J. A. J., & Lupton, R. A. (2010). The art of writing a scientific article.
Journal of Scientific Communications, 163, 51–59.
Reference to a book:
Strunk, W., Jr., & White,
E. B. (1979).
The elements of style. (4th ed.). New York: Longman, (Chapter 4).
Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
Mettam, G. R., & Adams, L. B. (2009). How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In B. S. Jones, & R. Z. Smith
(Eds.),
Introduction to the electronic age (pp. 281–304). New York: E-Publishing Inc.
Video data
Elsevier accepts video material and animation sequences to support and enhance your scientific
research. Authors who have video or animation files that they wish to submit with their article are strongly encouraged to include these
within the body of the article. This can be done in the same way as a figure or table by referring to the video or animation content
and noting in the body text where it should be placed. All submitted files should be properly labeled so that they directly relate to
the video file's content. In order to ensure that your video or animation material is directly usable, please provide the files in one
of our recommended file formats with a preferred maximum size of 50 MB. Video and animation files supplied will be published online in
the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com.
Please supply 'stills' with your files: you can choose any frame from the video or animation or make a separate image. These will be
used instead of standard icons and will personalize the link to your video data. For more detailed instructions please visit our video
instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions. Note: since video and animation cannot be embedded in
the print version of the journal, please provide text for both the electronic and the print version for the portions of the article that
refer to this content.
Supplementary material
Elsevier accepts supplementary
material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting
applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied
will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com.
In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please ensure that data is provided in one of our recommended file
formats. Authors should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption
for each file. For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at:
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Submission checklist
The following list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to
sending it to the journal for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.
Ensure that the following
items are present:
One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:
• E-mail address
• Full postal address
• Telephone and fax numbers
All necessary files have been uploaded, and contain:
•
Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)
Further considerations
•
Manuscript has been 'spell-checked' and 'grammar-checked'
• References are in the correct format for this journal
•
All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use
of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web)
• Color figures are clearly marked as being intended for color
reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print, or to be reproduced in color on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white
in print
• If only color on the Web is required, black-and-white versions of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes
For any further information please visit our customer support site at
http://support.elsevier.com.
Use of the Digital Object Identifier
The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to
electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon
the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly
'Articles in press' because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown
as follows (example taken from a document in the journal
Physics Letters B):
doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2010.09.059
When
you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, the DOIs are guaranteed never to change.
Proofs
One set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do
not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post) or, a link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download
the files themselves. Elsevier now provides authors with PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe
Reader version 7 (or higher) available free from
http://get.adobe.com/reader. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files
will accompany the proofs (also given online). The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site:
http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/tech-specs.html.
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return
them to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark
the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the
pages and e-mail, or by post. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text,
tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission
from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately – please let us have all your
corrections within 48 hours. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully
before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that
Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article if no response is received.
Proofs
The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail or, alternatively,
25 free paper offprints. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover
image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use. Additional paper offprints can be ordered by the authors. An order
form with prices will be sent to the corresponding author.
Additional Information
Discount
Authors are entitled to a 30% discount on Elsevier books (excluding major reference works).
Fast
Electronic Publication
Once the article has been proofed by the author, it will be published immediately on the journal's 'Articles
in Press' section online, thus making it available to subscribers to read and cite. For more information, visit:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/10603743
.
For inquiries relating to the submission of articles
(including electronic submission) please visit this journal's homepage. Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an
article, especially those relating to proofs, will be provided by the publisher. You can track accepted articles at
http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle.
You can also check our Author FAQs (
http://www.elsevier.com/authorFAQ) and/or contact Customer Support via
http://support.elsevier.com.
