Writing for Publication in Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine in the Saudi Arabian and Malaysian Contexts

Abstract

The present study explores the enterprise of nationally oriented journals for international visibility from an English for research and publication purposes (ERPP) perspective. It aims to investigate English as an additional language (EAL) scholars’ practice in writing English research articles (RAs) for publication in Saudi and Malaysian nationally oriented journals in science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM) disciplines. This study was motivated by the reality of scholarly performance in some semi/peripheral countries whose first language is not English but that are aiming to enhance their publishing performance. Although there has been great work in the literature on writing RAs for publishing in STEM and on investigating bibliometric indicators of published RAs, no previous research has investigated EAL scholars’ practices in two different nationally oriented contexts. Furthermore, none has integrated both linguistic and bibliometric analysis to investigate EAL scholars’ practices in writing for publishing in STEM. Therefore, this research aims to fill this gap. It is a corpus-based research that integrates corpus and discourse analysis approaches utilizing three research methods to map out scholars’ practices in writing for publication in both indexed and non-indexed nationally oriented STEM journals: the first makes use of bibliometric data analysis, the second involves textual analysis of citations using reporting verbs (RVs) and the third utilizes semi-structured interviews to gather the views and perceptions of journal editors in this study on the quality of their journals and the process of getting them globally indexed. The corpus consisted of 160 RAs. The model used to analyse citations is adapted from Hyland’s (2002) RV process and evaluation categories, Swales (1990) and Thompson’s (2001) formal realizations and Mansourizadeh and Ahmad’s (2011) citation functions. The use of RVs in citations was adopted as a lens through which differences/similarities in writing in two semi/peripheral contexts are examined. This study was informed by genre theory and social constructivist theory. The findings have shown some differences between indexed and non-indexed journals in terms of bibliometric indicators. Furthermore, an interesting finding of linguistic analysis has shown a preference for an integral citation form in Malaysian subcorpora. Interestingly, the textual analysis has shown more shared practices and similar patterns in citations using RVs. Feedback from journal editors has supported these findings and provided further explanation for these practices. Overall, there seem to be more non-discursive challenges faced by EAL scholars and nationally oriented journals than linguistic and discursive ones. The status of indexation of journals is suggested to be a crucial factor in their visibility and the quality of RAs submitted to them. Finally, the research provides some pedagogical applications and practical recommendations to assist EAL scholars and nationally oriented journals in promoting their own global visibility.