Reflections and future directions in publishing research in English as an Additional Language: An afterword

Academia has become a world in which scholars are being encouraged or pressured to publish more articles in higher-impact journals under increasingly stringent evaluation and review systems. In the UK, for example, the assessment of scholars’ research outputs within the national Research Excellence Framework [REF] can affect individuals’ promotions, departmental funding, and ultimately the ranking of the university within the country (Higher Education Funding Council for England, 2009; Parker, 2008; Martin, 2011). In countries where English is seen as an additional language, the pressures on scholars can be even greater. Not only do they have to reach the high standards of international journals in terms of content, relevance and novelty, but they also have to meet the often opaque and varying language requirements of these journals, while navigating through the sometimes cryptic, indirect suggestions and comments of reviewers (Paltridge, 2015).It is within this demanding and challenging environment that the PRISEAL [Publishing and Presenting Research Internationally: Issues for Speakers of English as an Additional Language] and MET [Mediterranean Editors and Translators] organisations decided to hold a joint conference in 2015. The conference was held in the beautiful city of Coimbra, Portugal, and provided a unique forum for researchers on academic writing and research publication to meet with in-house and freelance professional editors, who receive daily requests from clients to edit or translate their work for publication. In this volume that emerged from the joint conference, we can see a strong reiteration of the growing pressure on scholars to publish in English and recognition of the challenges they face. However, the strongest message we can receive from the authors of these chapters is that the challenges faced by scholars using English as an additional language can be overcome through a greater understanding of the problems they face, instruction and supervision from academic faculty that is tailored to their particular needs and contexts, and discipline-specific, focused support from professional language editors and translation experts.