Publish or perish is real in higher education. To be competitive, you must publish. But “publish” is such a general term, it does not mean much by itself. There are many places to publish, many kinds of publications, but in the eyes of people judging your professional qualifications, they are certainly not all equal.
For those of you in higher education, vying for jobs at research institutions or any four-year colleges, you probably are already well-aware of the rankings of different journals in the TESOL and related fields. My favorite source–the one I share with the graduate students I have taught–is the Scimago Journal & Country Rank website. On this website, use the “All subject categories” dropdown box to select “Linguistics and Language,” and you will see the list of top-ranked journals in linguistics and language. In the SJR column, you will see “Q1”. That means, the first quartile, and all of these journals are referred to as “tier-1” journals–publishing in these journals is the pinnacle.
There are 312 tier-1 journals as of my search in the video above, so plenty of options. The journal rankings go on to tier-2 journals, tier-3, and tier-4. One recommendation from my own foibles publishing–if you are publishing for your professional career, aim high. Even if you are not sure your work is tier-1 journal material, the feedback you get from higher tier journals tends to be thorough (though not always friendly), and it is always possible they will offer you an opportunity to publish with major revisions.
But, the question remains, do you need to publish? If so, does it matter where? In Japan, the general opinion is that for most higher education institutions, publishing in a high-ranking journal is not so important–quantity might be valued over quality, and even publishing in semi-peer-reviewed university journals can be seen as sufficient. Often you are expected to submit, or have, three academic publications when applying for a job. There is a great lack of clarity as to exactly how actively you need to publish or how important it is where you publish your work. I guess it makes sense–you should be publishing because you have a passion for the topic, and you are just excited about getting the word out about your research…Maybe, but to me there seems to be no question that the bulk of publishing going on in language education is related to improving one’s CV. In that light, knowing how journals rank, and thinking about the value of where you publish is important. Although there are scholars who publish a remarkable number of academic papers, book chapters, etc. in a single given year, my own experience has been that writing an academic paper takes time, more time, and then some more time. So, aim high with all of that work.
Wait, I’m not finish talking about publishing. Because, after my own foray into academic publishing, and both the thrill of having my work published and the aftermate of knowing how much time was spent gathering data, writing the paper, revising based on the first review, revising based on the second review, and then finally publishing the paper, and then waiting for it to appear, and then adding that one line to my resume….well, I think there have to be other good ways to get our ideas out. It is one motivation for creating this website. It is good to have a forum where we can write.
The good news is, there are so many places like that where you can publish your work if you are not worried about rankings and such. At the end of the day, publishing is just a way to get your ideas out to a wider audience. I have talked to too many great teachers whose faces turn sour when the word “publishing” is mentioned because they do not see themselves as producers of the scholarly work in the high-level journals. However, there are many venues where you can publish that are part of the different associations and interest groups in those associations, some of which I have written about in a separate post. The TESOL Connections newsletter is alway interesting to read, and a great place to publish practical writing related to pedagogy. However, you have to be a TESOL International member or a paid subscriber to read it. The submission guidelines are here. There also is the TESOL blog which anyone can read and write for, and the submission guideliness are here. The TESOL blog has no paywall to get through and anyone can write for it, so your ideas are likely to get a bigger audience than many academic publications that are behind paywalls.
Local English-teaching organizations may tend to have fewer paywalled publications, giving you opportunities to both read and publish your work whether or not you are a member. In Japan, for example, the Extensive Reading Special Interest Group (SIG) has two publications–a newsletter mainly aimed at members in Japan called Extensive Reading in Japan and an open-access academic journal, The Journal of Extensive Reading, where you do not need to be a member to publish. There are many more SIGs in the Japanese Association of Language Teaching which similarly have open-access publications and publishing opportunities even for non-members. Probably the same is true in many other countries and associations–please feel free to share about it in the comments!
There really are so many ways and places to publish, finding those places that satisfy your goals is key. I hope this post helps you consider some places you might like to share your TESOL ideas.
