Information for Authors

Notes to Contributors

General guidelines

Articles submitted to Applied Linguistics should represent outstanding scholarship and make original contributions to the field. The Editors will assume that an article submitted for their consideration has not previously been published and is not being considered for publication elsewhere, either in the submitted form or in a modified version.

Applied Linguistics welcomes submissions that offer new knowledge about language-related problems and solutions in real-world contexts. The journal invites submissions that report on empirical research and which foreground the real-world relevance of research on language with regard to the context, the design, and the implications of the research. Applied linguistics research typically has identifiable, real-world relevance for institutional practices in education, the workplace, healthcare, legal systems, and the media.    

Applied linguistics is a broadly defined, interdisciplinary field. The following guidance may help identify whether a paper is not well-suited for the journal. We encourage authors to consider other venues for publication if their papers fit these criteria:

• The research that has no clear connection with a real-world context
• The research primarily aims to offer insights into a research methodology or theoretical construct, with minimal attention to the real-world applications of the research
• The manuscript indicates the possible applied implications minimally, and only at the end of the paper, in 1-2 short paragraphs
• The paper is not based on empirical research 

Articles must be written in English and not include libelous or defamatory material. Manuscripts accepted for publication should not exceed 8,500 words including all material for publication in the print version of the article, except for the abstract, which should be no longer than 175 words. Discourse data needs to appear in text boxes and contributes to the overall word count. Additional material can be made available in the online version of the article. Such additions will be indexed in the print copy.

Applied Linguistics operates a double-blind peer review process. To facilitate this process, authors are requested to ensure that all submissions, whether first or revised versions, are anonymized. Authors' names and institutional affiliations should appear only on a detachable cover sheet. Author's name(s) should be substituted by 'author' throughout the paper, e.g. in references to the author's own work. To maintain anonymity, authors should not list their own publications in the reference section under ‘Author.’

Manuscripts should be written in English and must be submitted online through our Online Submission Website.
Full Instructions. Once you have prepared your manuscript according to the instructions please visit the online submission website.

Articles should be original and should not include libellous or defamatory material.

Each contributor should provide a brief biodata of about 90 words listing main interests, recent publications, and a contact address. Email address is optional. The biodata should also be included on the manuscript's title page.

If your article contains extracts from other works, especially Figures, Tables, poetry etc., please contact the authors and publishers before submitting the final version to seek permission to use their work. If primary data is to be included, research participants should have signed a consent form.

All contributors whose articles are accepted for publication will be required to sign a copyright assignment form, and to confirm that their article is original, accurate (inasmuch as can be ascertained in research), and does not include any libellous statements.

Pre-Submission Technical Checks 

In partnership with Cactus, we are offering authors free usage of their Paperpal Preflight tool pre-submission. This is an AI-driven tool that performs technical checks tailored to Applied Linguistics. Authors are given a markup of suggested corrections to match their paper to journal requirements.  Before submission, we encourage authors to run their paper through this tool. Please note that this is not mandatory and suggested corrections are optional.

Authors also have the option to pay for additional language checking – again, this is not mandatory and all suggested corrections are optional.

Forum

Forum pieces are reviewed by the Forum Editor and may be sent for external review. Items for the Forum section are normally no longer than 2,000 words. Contributions to the Forum section should be addressed to the Forum Editor.

They may consist of comments, statements on current issues, short reports on ongoing research (but NOT abstracts), or short replies to other articles.

Book Reviews

The journal publishes reviews of books relevant to the field of Applied Linguistics and are normally no longer than 1,500 words. Unsolicited book reviews are not accepted for publication.

Special thematic issues

The editors of Applied Linguistics solicit special thematic issues for publication. One special issue is published per year. 

References

The journal follows Oxford HUMSOC style. Please refer to these requirements when preparing your manuscript after initial review.

Books:

• author's surname followed by comma and initials (and full points) in bold, with a word space between two or more initials
• authors with two books in same year should be labelled a and b (immediately after date, no space)
• book titles in italic; main words have initial capitals, including subtitles

Articles:

• titles of journal articles in Roman with single inverted commas
• comma after final inverted comma (for journal articles)
• if an entry is a paper from an edited collection, put the title in Roman with single inverted commas but no full point after, then 'in'
• journal titles in italic; main words have initial capitals
• check that all details have been included: volume,  page numbers. 

If a book is referred to several times, put the full details as a separate entry with just authors and dates elsewhere; however, if it is referred to only once put the full details with the entry for the paper. Please check that all works referred to have their full details somewhere.

Check that all bibliographical refs in the article are in the References, and vice versa. If any entries are incomplete or inconsistent please query straight away-page proof stage is too late.

Authors' names often misspelt: Courchêne (circumflex accent), DeCarrico (no space or hyphen, two capitals), Dörnyei (umlaut), Færch (elision), Givón (acute accent on o), Sharwood Smith (two words, no hyphen), Skutnabb-Kangas (one t, two b's, hyphen), VanPatten (no space or hyphen, two capitals).

If the reference is available online, please give the URL if you know it. We are aiming to provide direct reference linking from the online version of the journal.

Bibliographical references in the text follow the author-date system, e.g.: 'It has been shown that learners do not always think (Clark and Clark 1977: 57-85)' or '(Swain 1985)'. 'Ellis (1985) has shown that ...'

No comma between author's name and date. Space between date and page numbers if given.

If two or more works are referred to, list them in date order. If more than one was published in the same year, list these alphabetically by author's name. Separate them with semicolons, as follows: 'Ellis 1985; Wenden 1986; Swain 1995'.

Dates: 1960s not 1960's, l96Os, '60s, sixties, etc. 'In the 1970s' rather than 'thirty years ago'.

Figures and Tables: Where a Figure or Table is to be inserted in the text, on a separate line write

[FIGURE 1 NEAR HERE]

The Tables and Figures themselves should be inserted at the end of the article, or in a separate file. Each Figure and Table should be clearly labelled with number and caption. They should be numbered Figure 1, Figure 2, Table 1, Table 2, etc.

Headings: No more than two levels of heading below the title. Headings should not be numbered.

Inverted commas: Use single quotes except for quotations within quotations.

Notes: endnotes not footnotes. Number using Arabic numerals.

Oxford comma (serial comma): insert in a series: 'this, that, and/or something else'.

Paragraphs: No line space should be left between paragraphs. The first line of new paragraphs should be indented, except straight after a heading. Do not use a hard return at the end of a line in running text, except at the end of a paragraph.

Quotations from other works should not be put in OUP style but any inaccuracies or inconsistencies should be queried. Quotations of more than three lines should be displayed and indented. Check that page numbers of the source have been provided.

Spaces between words or after full points and colons: should be a single word space.

Spelling: British or American English: author should state which. Check for consistency. 'Sociolinguistics@sociolinguists@psycholinguistics', etc.: no hyphen. Endings: use -ize endings where allowed, even in British English.

Supplementary Data: Only directly relevant material should be included in the full text of manuscripts. Supporting materials and Appendices which are not essential for inclusion in the full text, may be published as online-only Supplementary Data. This should be submitted for review, in a separate file or files from the manuscript. Most common file formats may be used: .doc; .ppt. .xls; .tif; jpg. Authors should ensure that the Supplementary Data is referred to in the main manuscript at an appropriate point in the text. It cannot be altered or replaced after the paper has been accepted for publication.

Figure accessibility and alt text

Incorporating alt text (alternative text) when submitting your paper helps to foster inclusivity and accessibility. Good alt text ensures that individuals with visual impairments or those using screen readers can comprehend the content and context of your figures. The aim of alt text is to provide concise and informative descriptions of your figure so that all readers have access to the same level of information and understanding, and that all can engage with and benefit from the visual elements integral to scholarly content. Including alt text demonstrates a commitment to accessibility and enhances the overall impact and reach of your work.  

Alt text is applicable to all images, figures, illustrations, and photographs. 

Alt text is only accessible via e-reader and so it won’t appear as part of the typeset article. 

Detailed guidance on how to draft and submit alt text. 

Availability of Data and Materials

Where ethically feasible, Applied Linguistics strongly encourages authors to make all data and software code on which the conclusions of the paper rely available to readers. We suggest that data be presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files, or deposited in a public repository whenever possible. For information on general repositories for all data types, and a list of recommended repositories by subject area, please see Choosing where to archive your data.

Data Citation

Applied Linguistics supports the Force 11 Data Citation Principles and requires that all publicly available datasets be fully referenced in the reference list with an accession number or unique identifier such as a digital object identifier (DOI). Data citations should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite:

• [dataset]* Authors, Year, Title, Publisher (repository or archive name), Identifier

*The inclusion of the [dataset] tag at the beginning of the citation helps us to correctly identify and tag the citation. This tag will be removed from the citation published in the reference list.

Preprint policy

Authors retain the right to make an Author’s Original Version (preprint) available through various channels, and this does not prevent submission to the journal. For further information see our Online Licensing, Copyright and Permissions policies. If accepted, the authors are required to update the status of any preprint, including your published paper’s DOI, as described on our Author Self-Archiving policy page.

Third-Party Content in Open Access papers

If you will be publishing your paper under an Open Access licence but it contains material for which you do not have Open Access re-use permissions, please state this clearly by supplying the following credit line alongside the material:
Title of content; author; original publication; year of original publication; by permission of [rights holder].
This image/content is not covered by the terms of the Creative Commons licence of this publication. For permission to reuse, please contact the rights holder.

Electronic Manuscripts:

Applied Linguistics does not have an electronic style sheet as some journals do.

Hyphenation and justification: turn off.

Line numbers: include line numbers in your submission. 

Page breaks Do not insert page breaks in the text. Do not insert extra spacing to avoid widows or orphans: page breaks will be different in the typeset proofs.

Proofread and spell check your work when you have finished.

Software: Please let us know which word-processing software you are using. Please do not convert files to ASCII-it is easier for us to convert from a word-processing program, and any formatting will be lost.

Make a back-up of all your work!

If you detect any virus on your machine, please inform all your OUP contacts immediately with full details.

Proofs

Proofs will be sent to the author for correction, and should be returned to Oxford University Press by the deadline given.

Copyright

Acceptance of an author's copyright material is on the understanding that it has been assigned to the Oxford University Press subject to the following conditions. Authors are free to use their articles in subsequent publications written or edited by themselves, provided that acknowledgement is made of Applied Linguistics as the place of original publication. Except for brief extracts the Oxford University Press will not give permission to a third party to reproduce material from an article unless two months have elapsed without response from the authors after the relevant application has been made to them. It is the responsibility of the author to obtain permission to reproduce extracts, figures, or tables from other works.

Upon receipt of accepted manuscripts at Oxford Journals authors will be invited to complete an online copyright licence to publish form.

Please note that by submitting an article for publication you confirm that you are the corresponding/submitting author and that Oxford University Press ("OUP") may retain your email address for the purpose of communicating with you about the article. You agree to notify OUP immediately if your details change. If your article is accepted for publication OUP will contact you using the email address you have used in the registration process. Please note that OUP does not retain copies of rejected articles.

Open Access Option for Authors

Applied Linguists offers the option of publishing under either a standard licence or an open access licence. Please note that some funders require open access publication as a condition of funding. If you are unsure whether you are required to publish open access, please do clarify any such requirements with your funder or institution.

Should you wish to publish your article open access, you should select your choice of open access licence in our online system after your article has been accepted for publication. You will need to pay an open access charge to publish under an open access licence.

Details of the open access licences and open access charges.

OUP has a growing number of Read and Publish agreements with institutions and consortia which provide funding for open access publishing. This means authors from participating institutions can publish open access, and the institution may pay the charge. Find out if your institution is participating.

Crossref Funding Data Registry

In order to meet your funding requirements authors are required to name their funding sources, or state if there are none, during the submission process. For further information on this process or to find out more about CHORUS, visit the CHORUS initiative.

Author Discounts

All corresponding authors will be provided with a free access link to their article upon publication.  The link will be sent via email to the article’s corresponding author who is free to share the link with any co-authors.  Please see OUP’s Author Self-Archiving policy for more information regarding how this link may be publicly shared depending on the type of license under which the article has published.  
 
All authors have the option to purchase up to 10 print copies of the issue in which they publish at a 50% discount. Orders should be placed through this order form. Orders must be made within 12 months of the online publication date.