Information for Authors

Readership

ELT Classroom Research Journal is truly international, with readers across the globe, teaching EFL, ESL, ESOL, EAL, EAP, and ESP in a variety of contexts and conditions. Our readers work in primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, in private learning centres and independent tutorial settings, in the state and private sectors. Some are teacher trainers and others are teachers in training. Many hold posts of responsibility and manage ELT programs and projects, others may be ill-trained novices, all are engaging in professional self-development.

General information for submissions

ELTCRJ uses a web-based online submission system. Contributions can only be received through this system.

Full details of how to make online submissions can be found further below.

The scholarly community has adopted the “non-duplicate submissions” practice: sending the same article to more than one journal while under consideration at a journal is considered unethical behavior. We promise to work quickly to confirm receipt, to inform promptly if the paper is not to be sent to reviewers (referees), and to return their assessments quickly.

All submissions are blind-reviewed by two experts, one internal and one external. In order to maintain anonymity during the peer review process, please avoid stating your name in your submitted article.

We welcome articles that report on your classroom experiences with new methods, techniques, materials, syllabuses, means of assessment, approaches to teacher training, and other areas of professional interest. Those focusing on aspects of the English language (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, discourse features, etc.) are also welcome insofar as they discuss classroom approaches to teaching and learning. Our focus there would be on the practical applications of language description or analysis. We accept for review papers from 2,800 – 7,000 words in length, (excluding Bio and Index) though longer articles will be considered. We strongly encourage submissions of less than 5,000 words.

We are interested in receiving articles that describe carefully planned and executed experiments in the classroom (i.e., classroom research), provided that the experiment is designed to throw light on a topic that is of interest to our readers. Action Research – a teacher’s planned intervention in the classroom — is an important and under-reported component of classroom research, and while these papers may be somewhat shorter and “less scholarly” than traditional scientific reports, they are to be based on a solid understanding of existing ELT principles.

The following guides are part of our initial screening in determining which papers will move forward in the reviews process:

• Articles should be clearly, concisely, and coherently written so that the contents are internally consistent and accessible to the readership. 
• Descriptions of practice should be tied to underlying theoretical principles: no extensive literature review is needed, but evidence of a principled basis for the classroom study is essential.
• Articles that deal with a particular teaching or learning context should indicate (in conclusions?) how this information may be relevant to those working in a variety of different situations.
• The presentation/discussion of data must be accessible by those with only a basic knowledge of statistics or specialized terminology.
• Make your article reader-friendly — this is not a proof of your ability to write “academese”. Use short headings and subheadings to make the structure of your article clear. If appropriate, illustrate your article with examples, diagrams, tables, etc. 
• Action Research articles should report a research design based on identifying a classroom problem, planning an action, executing the action, and analyzing the effects of the action – but the written presentation need not be organized this way.
• Do not over-reference articles. Key sources only. As a rough guide, articles should contain no more than 15 references. Of these, no more than three should relate to your own work. We strongly encourage referencing open-access articles that classroom teachers with limited libraries can view. Which are the key underlying assumptions that support the theory or practice your study is based upon? Who has done similar work?
• Give your article a brief, clear, and informative title. Titles should preferably be no more than 50 characters long, with an absolute maximum of 70, including spaces. Avoid the colon style “This is the Topic: More Detail” title format.
• Do not use footnotes, endnotes should be avoided.
• Include your illustrations (figures) and tables in the body of the article in the rough location you expect it would be published.
• Follow APA7th style.

You should submit an Abstract introducing your paper. Every author must submit a brief biography as well as the following information. All submissions should be submitted here.

Process: All submissions undergo a blind peer-review process. You will be informed of the results of the review process within 4-12 weeks (this may vary depending on various factors) after confirmation of the receipt of your submission.

________________________________________
Author’s Submission must include

• Name
• Address
• E-mail
• Phone number
• Brief history of professional expertise
• Formal qualifications (degrees, licenses)
• An undertaking that the work has not been published and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere
• Statement on conflict of interest and financial support
• Abstract

________________________________________
Format for all submissions (Please read this before submitting your work).

In order to assist us with web preparation, the following procedures are essential:

1. The document must be in MS Word format (.doc, .docx, .rtf)
2. ‘Smart tags’ should be removed.
3. Footnotes must not “pop up” in the document. They must appear at the end of the article.
4. Citations and referencing—APA 7th edition.
5. The abstract should contain an informative summary of the main points of the article, including, where relevant, the article’s purpose, theoretical framework, methodology, types of data analyzed, subject information, main findings, and conclusions. It should be between 150 and 250 words. Your abstract should be a single paragraph and must not be indented.
6. Keywords: List 4-7 keywords to facilitate locating the article through keyword searches in the future. Italicize the keywords and place them below the abstract.
7. Graphs and charts should be placed in the body of the document.
8. Paragraphs. Indent the beginning of each paragraph except those immediately following a heading, quotation, example, figure, chart or table. Keep text formatting (e.g., italics, bold, etc.) to the absolute minimum necessary.
9. Your contact information, name, and affiliation are to be submitted on a separate title page. Do not include your info displayed in the Template in the initial submission. In addition, the similarity index of your paper must be stated here. Finally, a line certifying that your paper is not under review and has not been published elsewhere should be indicated on the title page.
10. Papers with 15% or above similarity index are rejected right away. This journal uses Turnitin software in checking plagiarism. If you want to be sure that your paper does not have a high similarity, you may use any plagiarism checker. However, you should adjust its settings and choose not to index your article or save it in the database of the plagiarism software. If you do so, your paper might yield 100% similarity in our checker by the time we upload it to our system and will be rejected or declined.
11. Authors incorporating unethical practices such as duplicate submission, plagiarism, and withdrawing papers during the copy-editing/proofing stage and the like, will not be reviewed
12. Authors retain the copyright and full publishing rights without restriction until publication, at which point the provisions of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License apply.

Suggestions for Author’s Submission

1. Organization of your paper.

• Abstract (so that humans and computers can quickly identify the key elements of your paper, use bits from Introduction, Research Question, Methods, Results, and Conclusions (probably not Literature Review and Discussion).
• Introduction (state the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a summary of the results)
• Literature Review (be succinct, what have you examined that is relevant to this study? – one short paragraph may suffice in Action Research papers)
• Research Question(s) (be very succinct, bullet points could do)
• Methods (population, materials, techniques — provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be replicated, methods already published should be indicated by a reference, only relevant modifications should be described)
• Results (be clear and concise, results from analysis might be presented best in tables and figures)
• Discussion (explore the significance of the results of the work — do not simply 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 — do not simply repeat earlier sections)

2. Use of Tables & Figures.

• “A picture (or table) is worth 1,000 words” – don’t repeat in narrative what can be said in a clear table or figure.
• “Less is more” — conciseness adds to clarity – don’t include data that is irrelevant, in text, figures, or tables. If you aren’t using this information, don’t present it here (save it for another paper?).
• Legibility is key – don’t use tiny type for notations in tables and figures that cannot be read.

3. Length

• 2,700 – 7,000 words. Shorter is better, but don’t omit key details needed to understand the study.

4. Listing contributors

This is very difficult during a time where teachers and scholars are pushed to add scholarly publications to their CV.

• Only include those who have actually contributed to the paper (no “courtesy” (ghost) authors), an “English text editor” is not a co-author.
• List authors in order of level of contribution to this publication.
• ELTCRJ does not identify “corresponding author”.

Category: ELTCRJ