Peer Review Policy

The peer review process is to ensure that only good articles are published. Our reviewers are given the important task to maintain good quality of the articles published in Issues in Language Studies (ILS) and all manuscripts are peer reviewed following the procedure outlined below.

Preliminary Evaluation

The Editors first evaluate all manuscripts. Those rejected at this stage are insufficiently original, have serious scientific flaws, have poor grammar or English language, or are outside the aims and scope of the journal. Those that meet the minimum criteria are passed on to experts for review. Authors of manuscripts rejected at this stage will be informed within 2 weeks of receipt.

Reviewer Selection

Reviewers are matched to the paper according to their expertise. Our reviewer database contains reviewer contact details together with their subject areas of interest, and this is constantly being updated.

Reviewer reports

Reviewers are asked to evaluate whether the manuscript:

Is original
Is methodologically sound
Follows appropriate ethical guidelines
Has results which are clearly presented and support the conclusions
Correctly references previous relevant work

However, reviewers are not expected to correct or copyedit manuscripts. Language correction is not part of the peer review process. Reviewers are requested to refrain from indicating their identity in one way or another in the review report. Any explicit personal opinion should be director to the editor and not the authors.

Duration of Peer Review Process

Typically the manuscript will be reviewed within 3-8 weeks. Should the reviewers’ reports contradict one another or a report is unnecessarily delayed a further expert opinion will be sought. Revised manuscripts are usually returned to the Editors within 3 to 4 weeks and the Editors may request further advice from the reviewers at this time. The Editors may request more than one revision of a manuscript.

Final report

A final decision to accept or reject the manuscript will be sent to the author along with any recommendations made by the reviewers, and may include verbatim comments by the reviewers.

Editor’s Decision is final

Reviewers advise the Editors, who are responsible for the final decision to accept or reject the article.

Becoming a Reviewer

If you are not currently a reviewer for the ILS but would like to be considered as a reviewer for this Journal, please contact the Chief Editor at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and provide your contact details.

Plagiarism and Ethics

The editorial board takes plagiarism and ethical issues seriously, and in the spirit of honest scientific and ethical publishing, all articles found (suspected) as duplicate submission or plagiarised work, shall be withdrawn automatically from the journal. Authors are strongly advised to:

adhere to reporting standards
uphold academic honesty and avoid plagiarising others' works
avoid redundant or concurrent subbmissions (to other journals)
acknowledge all courses cited in the work accurately
clear all any ethical requirements

Copyrights and Permissions

Dear Authors, please read the following statements carefully before submitting your article.

Licensing (Permission to Reuse)

Under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, the author(s) and users are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit the contribution) under the following conditions: 1. they must attribute the contribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor, 2. they may not use this contribution for commercial purposes, 3. they may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

Authors retain the following rights:

copyright, and other proprietary rights relating to the article, such as patent rights,
the right to use the substance of the article in future own works, including lectures and books,
the right to reproduce the article for own purposes, provided the copies are not offered for sale,
the right to self-archive the article.

Royalties
This agreement entitles the author to no royalties or other fees. To such extent as legally permissible, the author waives his or her right to collect royalties relative to the article in respect of any use of the article by ILS or its sublicensee.

Co-Authorship
If the article was prepared jointly with other authors, the signatory of this form warrants that he/she has been authorized by all co-authors to sign this agreement on their behalf, and agrees to inform his/her co-authors of the terms of this agreement.

Open Access Statements

Articles published in Issues in Language Studies are open-access, which means they are available on the internet to all users immediately upon publication. Non-commercial use and distribution in any medium is permitted, provided the author and the journal are properly credited.