Submission Guidelines
This page provides the Journal of English and Applied Linguistics's policies on manuscript submission. This covers rules and procedures on eligibility, submissions, paper formatting, and copyright.
Contents
Who Can Submit?
Anyone may submit an original article to be considered for publication in the Journal of English and Applied Linguistics provided he or she owns the copyright to the work being submitted or is authorized by the copyright owner or owners to submit the article. Authors are the initial owners of the copyrights to their works (an exception in the non-academic world to this might exist if the authors have, as a condition of employment, agreed to transfer copyright to their employer).
Those who have already published in JEAL within the past 2 years however are not allowed to publish another paper within that period. For example, someone who authored a paper in the June 2023 issue may only be accepted again for the June 2025 release.
Initial Submission Rules and Procedures
Submitted articles cannot have been previously published, nor be forthcoming in an archival journal or book (print or electronic). However, that "publication" in a working paper series does not constitute prior publication per policies of the Journal of English and Applied Linguistics. In addition, by submitting material to JEAL, the author is stipulating that the material is not currently under review at another journal (electronic or print) and that he or she will not submit the material to another journal (electronic or print) until the completion of the editorial decision process at the Journal of English and Applied Linguistics. If you have concerns about JEAL's submission terms, please contact the editors.
- Before submitting your paper, read the aims and scope, the acceptance criteria, and the ethics policies of JEAL. You can avoid outright desk rejections if your paper is compliant with all those guidelines.
- Ensure that your paper includes the following declarations in the last part of the paper:
- Declaration of Conflict of Interest
- Statement of Similarity (allowable Turnitin percentage is 10% and below)
- Declaration of AI Use
- Sign up to create an Animo Repository account.
- All accounts of Animo Repository, including the journal submission system where such accounts are used, are managed via Elsevier's Digital Commons platform.
- The email address you use for account creation will also be used by the JEAL editorial team to correspond with you, so make sure that it is active and constantly checked.
- Submit your manuscript through the Submit Article button on the right-hand navigation bar. Make sure you are registered and logged in to Animo Repository.
- Ensure an anonymized article by removing all identifiers (e.g., name/s, affiliation, email address) from the title page, body text, headers and footers, and file properties. To remove personal information from DOC or DOCX file properties:
- On Microsoft Word click the File tab on the top ribbon (toolbar).
- Under Info select the Check for Issues button.
- Look for Inspect Document to open the Document Inspector window.
- Before pressing Inspect make sure to check the box labelled Document Properties and Personal Information.
- Check your article for accuracy and similarity before submission. JEAL uses the web-based Turnitin software to measure the similarity of submitted articles against internet sources. Only 10 percent similarity is accepted. If you checked your paper using Turnitin or other plagiarism checkers prior to submitting to JEAL, ensure that you did not index or save your article in their database. You may append the similarity report in your article submission.
- If your paper is part of a more extensive study, declare if it has been published through a cover letter. Describe the parts of your research that have not been published or are not under consideration in other publications. The cover letter must be separately attached from the manuscript through the submission system.
- Submitted articles are reviewed first by the Editor in Chief (EIC) or Principal Associate Editors (PAE) before they are sent out for double-blind peer review by the Associate Section Editors (ASE). The review process takes 4-6 months. Once the EIC reaches a decision, the decision is unappealable.
- JEAL puts on a blacklist of authors who violate established ethics in research and publishing. Hence, JEAL has zero tolerance for plagiarized works, duplicate texts, fabricated research, and the like.
- Multiple submission is discouraged. Authors cannot have more than two published articles in JEAL in 2 years.
- Before submitting your paper, read the aims and scope, the acceptance criteria, and the ethics policies of JEAL. You can avoid outright desk rejections if your paper is compliant with all those guidelines.
Formatting Requirements
The Journal of English and Applied Linguistics has no general formatting rules for initial manuscript submissions. There are, however, rules governing the typesetting and layout requirements during the copyediting stage leading to the final submission. This is most pertinent to authors whose manuscript has already passed desk review (initial screening) and has been accepted for publication after the double-blind peer review. You may check them in the next section on Final Manuscript Preparation.
Although JEAL's submission system host, bepress, can provide limited technical support, it is ultimately the responsibility of the author to produce an electronic version of the article as a high-quality PDF, or Word or RTF file that can be converted to a PDF file.
It is understood that the current state of technology of Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) is such that there are no, and can be no, guarantees that documents in PDF will work perfectly with all possible hardware and software configurations that readers may have.
Final Manuscript Preparation
Copyediting Checklist
- Ensure that the following information is included in your final manuscript:
- Title
- Author/s's information (name, affiliation, address of the institution, email address)
- Abstract
- Keywords
- Main body text
- References
- Appendices (if applicable)
- Author/s's bio profile with email address (maximum words for each author is 250 words)
- Acknowledgements (if applicable)
- Declaration of Conflict of Interest
- Declaration of Authors' Contributions
- Statement of Originality and Similarity
- Declaration of AI Use
- Short articles should not be more than 4,000 words. Long articles should not exceed 7,000 words. These limits include the title, authors' information, abstract, keywords, notes, and body text but exclude appendices, and references.
- Remove all change tracking markups and comments from the copyediting stage, unless in rare instances that they are meant to be part of the final text. On Microsoft Word, open the Review tab in the top ribbon (toolbar) and select:
- Accept All Changes in the Tracking section
- Delete All Comments in Document in the Comments section
- Ensure that in-text citations dovetail with your reference entries. We encourage the use of Reciteworks.com for in-text and reference checks.
- Your manuscript, including tables, figures, appendices, etc., as a single file (Word, RTF, or PDF files are accepted). Include the copyright form as a separate attachment.
Here is an example statement:
The author/s of this manuscript attest/s that this work is the result of an original study, that it is not currently under review in other journals, that it was not published before in any format except in abstract form in conferences/university repositories, and that its similarity index with a similarity detection software is 10% or below.
Please note that JEAL will screen your submission before and after the review process using Turnitin. Only a 10% similarity score is acceptable. If you checked your paper using Turnitin or other plagiarism checkers prior to submitting to JEAL, ensure that you did not index or save your article in their database. You may append the similarity report in your article submission.
Use of AI at the different stages of research and writing the article must be declared. Please see guidelines for authors on the allowable use of AI.
Typesetting and Layout Requirements
Page Layout
- Page size must be Letter-sized or 8.5 x 11 inches (21.59 cm x 27.94 cm).
- All margins (left, right, top and bottom) must be 1.5 inches (3.81 cm). Pages with tables and figures are not exempted.
- All pages must be in single column layout.
- Do not include page numbers, headers, or footers. These will be added by the editors.
- When possible, there must be no pages where more than a quarter of it is empty space.
Font
- Body text — 12 pts. Times New Roman or the closest comparable font available
- Headings and subheadings — 12 pts. Times New Roman or the closest comparable font available, regardless of hierarchy
- Footnotes — 10 pts. Times New Roman or the closest comparable font available
- If there is a need to reduce the font size due to layout issues involving tables and figures, avoid using fonts smaller than 6 pts.
- If a second font is desired, for instance for headings, use a sans serif font (e.g., Arial or Computer Modern Sans Serif).
- If there are special symbols, especially IPA annotations, Times New Roman is advised to avoid rendering issues.
- If possible, all text fonts are in black and have no text highlights.
- Titles of works (e.g., books, movies, music) must be set in italics.
- Use italics when emphasizing. The use of color and or bold to emphasize text is discouraged.
- Symbols, notations, and mathematical expressions in unusual fonts should be avoided. This will not only enhance the clarity of the manuscript, but it will also help ensure that it displays correctly. When proofing your document under PDF pay particular attention to the rendering of elements other than standard fonts.
Indentation, Spacing, and Alignment
- All first paragraphs right below section (sub)headings must not be indented. Only succeeding paragraphs must be indented. An indent must be at least 2 em-spaces.
- Body text (e.g., paragraphs) must be single-spaced.
- There must be space above and below headings and subheadings.
- Do not insert an extra space between paragraphs with the exception of long quotations, theorems, propositions, special remarks, etc. These must be set off from the surrounding text by additional space above and below.
- Do not "widow" or "orphan" text (i.e., ending a page with the first line of a paragraph or beginning a page with the last line of a paragraph).
- All text in the body and headings, including those in tables and figures must be justify-aligned.
Language and Grammar
- All submissions must be in English. Except for common foreign words and phrases, the use of foreign words and phrases must be avoided.
- Authors should use proper, standard English grammar. The Elements of Style (4th edition) by William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White (1999) is the "standard" guide, but other excellent guides (e.g., The Chicago Manual of Style, University of Chicago Press) exist as well.
- When involving foreign terms, transcriptions or transliterations in the Latin script should be set in italics. Do not italicize the original/indigenous form if the source language is traditionally written in a non-Latin script. Enclose English translations in "double quotation marks." See the example below:
In Korean Jungguk (중국, lit. middle country 中國)) means "China," while Miguk (미국, lit. beautiful country 美國 [South], rice country 米國 [North]) refers to "United States."
Footnotes
- Footnotes must only appear on the page which they are mentioned in-text, not at the end of the paper.
- Must be in 10 pts. Times News Roman or closest comparable font available, single-spaced, and below a footnote separator rule (line)
- In-text reference numbers, letters, or symbols must be superscripted (e.g., 1 a * †).
- Must be justify-aligned, unless this creates awkward spacing which may warrant left justification
- Must always come after the punctuation (e.g., appearing at the end of a sentence)
- Excessively long footnotes are advised to be moved to an appendix instead.
Tables and Figures
- If figures are included, use high-resolution figures, preferably encoded as EPS. Image format such as JPG and PNG are also accepted.
- To the extent possible, tables and figures (e.g., graphs, charts, diagrams) should appear in the body text near where they are mentioned in-text.
- Large tables or figures must occupy their own page.
- Text must be in 12 pts. Times New Roman or the closest comparable font available.
- In no case should tables or figures be in a separate document or file. All tables and figures must fit within 1.5" margins on all sides (top, bottom, left and right) in both portrait and landscape view.
- Since JEAL is fully online, take advantage of the ability to use color in the production of figures (e.g., graphs, charts, diagrams); however, you are strongly advised to observe utmost prudence in using color combinations and contrasts if considering the possibility that a reader prints the published paper for non-commercial purposes.
- Latin and Greek letters used in mathematical expressions as variables should be italicized (e.g., a, χ, f, σ). Letters used as part of multi-letter function names should not be italicized.
- Subscripts and superscripts must be a smaller font size than the body text.
- Short mathematical expressions should be typed inline. Longer expressions and those using many different levels (e.g., fractions) must appear as display math. Important definitions or concepts can also be set off as display math.
- Equations should be numbered sequentially. Whether equation numbers are on the right or left is the choice of the author(s) but must be consistent throughout the paper.
- It is the author's obligation to provide complete references with the necessary information. Only works cited in-text are to be included in the end-text citations in a dedicated References section.
- The References section should appear immediately after the end of the body text and, if applicable, before the appendices. It must be separated with a line break—not a page break—and thus is a continuation of the previous section (e.g., Conclusion) .
- End-text citations must be justify-aligned. One or more citations may be left-aligned if spacing looks awkward.
- All cited works in the manuscript and the list of references should follow the most current iteration of APA Style (7th edition). Arrange the list of reference in hanging indentation.
- Storage and back-up of the article on the author’s computer(s) and digital media (e.g., diskettes, back-up servers, Zip disks, etc.), provided that the article stored on these computers and media is not readily accessible by persons other than the author(s);
- Posting of the article on the author(s) personal website, provided that the website is non-commercial
- Posting of the article on the internet as part of a non-commercial open access institutional repository or other non-commercial open access publication site affiliated with the author(s)’s place of employment (e.g., a Phrenology professor at the University of Southern North Dakota can have her article appear in the University of Southern North Dakota's Department of Phrenology online publication series)
- Posting of the article on a non-commercial course website for a course being taught by the author at the university or college employing the author
Mathematics and Statistics
References
Below are example citations based on APA Style (7th edition):
Journal Article
Biber, D., Conrad, S., & Cortes, V. (2004). If you look at . . .: Lexical bundles in university teaching and textbooks. Applied Linguistics, 25(3), 371–405.
Book
Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Longman.
Chapter in an Edited Book
Kaplan, R. B. (1987). Cultural thought patterns revisited. In U. Connor, & R. Kaplan (Eds.), Writing across languages: Analysis of L2 text (pp. 91–21). Addison-Wesley.
Several Volumes of a Multivolume Work
Harris, K. R., Graham, S., & Urdan T. (Eds.). (2012). APA educational psychology handbook (Vols. 1–3). American Psychological Association.
Unpublished Dissertation or Thesis
Reyes, J. (2014). Spirituality in the workplace [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. De La Salle University.
Print News/Magazine Article
Lyons, D. (2009, June 15). Don’t ‘iTune’ us: It’s geeks versus writers. Guess who’s winning. Newsweek, 153(24), 27.
Online News Article
Toner, K. (2020, September 24). When Covid-19 hit, he turned his newspaper route into a lifeline for senior citizens. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/us/coronavirus-newspaper-deliveryman-groceries-senior-citizens-cnnheroes-trnd/index.html
Webpage
UNESCO. (n.d.). Our history. https://www.unesco.org/en/brief/history
Blog Post
MiddleKid. (2007, January 22). Re: The unfortunate prerequisites and consequences of partitioning your mind. ScienceBlogs. https://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/01/22/the-unfortunate-prerequisites
Online Dictionary Entry
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Linguistics. Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/semantics
Wikipedia
Linguistics. (2023, April 13). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics
For more examples, please check the APA Style website (https://apastyle.apa.org/) or our latest issue in its electronic version.
Rights for Authors and Animo Repository
As further described in our copyright agreement, in consideration for publication of the article, the authors assign to De La Salle University Publishing House all copyright in the article, subject to the expansive personal-use exceptions described below.
Attribution and Usage Policies
Reproduction, posting, transmission or other distribution or use of the article or any material therein, in any medium as permitted by a personal-use exemption or by written agreement of De La Salle University Publishing House, requires credit to De La Salle University Publishing House (e.g., De La Salle University Publishing House © 2022).
Personal-Use Exceptions
The following uses are always permitted to the author(s) and do not require further permission from De La Salle University Publishing House provided the author does not alter the format or content of the articles, including the copyright notification:
General Terms and Conditions of Use
Users of the Animo Repository website and/or software agree not to misuse the Animo Repository service or software in any way.
The failure of Animo Repository to exercise or enforce any right or provision in the policies or the Submission Agreement does not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. If any term of the Submission Agreement or these policies is found to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavor to give effect to the parties' intentions as reflected in the provision, and the other provisions of the Submission Agreement and these policies remain in full force and effect. These policies and the Submission Agreement constitute the entire agreement between Animo Repository and the Author(s) regarding submission of the Article.