Author Guidelines

  • Language Learning is an international journal that publishes rigorous, original empirical research as well as systematic critical literature reviews, innovative methodological contributions, and high-value replication research, including multi-site replication studies. These types of research can be published via the regular route (see Submission requirements) or, where appropriate, via the Registered Report route (see Submission requirements for Registered Reports).

     

    Domains covered include first and second language acquisition in naturalistic as well as tutored contexts, including second, foreign, and heritage language, bi-/multilingual education, immersion programs, and study abroad. All disciplinary perspectives are welcome, from linguistics and psychology to anthropology, cognitive science, education, neuroscience, and sociology.

     

    As one of the premier peer-reviewed journals in the field of applied linguistics, established in 1948 at the University of Michigan, Language Learning strives to promote research of the highest quality with thorough literature reviews and solid theoretical frameworks, rigorous data analysis, cogent argumentation, and clear presentation.

  • Language Learning invites original submissions in the following categories:

    • Empirical Study. Manuscripts submitted under this category should report research carried out in a specific domain of language studies, involving a theoretical or applied focus relevant to language learning and development.
    • Conceptual Review Article. Manuscripts submitted under this category should offer a current review of a body of knowledge in a specific domain of language learning studies, rigorously developing theoretical arguments relevant to problems in language research or problematizing key issues in need of further investigation.
    • Methodological Review. Manuscripts submitted under this category should provide a state-of-the-art review of methods and techniques employed in a particular domain of language learning studies, systematizing and consolidating methodological insights both within and across research paradigms.
    • Methods Showcase. Manuscripts submitted under this category should introduce new or emerging methods, techniques, or instrumentation for language data collection, cleaning, sampling, coding, scoring, analysis, and interpretation. MSAs are intended to describe methods and provide detailed examples of their application such that language researchers can easily use them in future studies.
    • Systematic Review. Manuscripts submitted under this category should systematically analyze data, concepts, and results from previous studies to clarify trends and issues in language learning research and to inform readers of trends in developing fields of language study. Preference will be given to articles which target novel or underexplored issues and articles which systematize knowledge in research areas with disputed or conflicting findings.
    • Registered  Reports. Registered Reports are a form of empirical article in which a substantial part of the manuscript (including the methods and proposed analyses) is reviewed and then preregistered, once approved, prior to the research being conducted. This format is designed to reduce bias and other questionable research practices, particularly in deductive science, while also allowing researchers the flexibility to conduct subsequent unregistered (exploratory) analyses and to report serendipitous findings. As well as being appropriate for hypothesis-driven research, the format can also be suitable for other approaches, such as meta-analysis, observation, case study, or ethnography, where (at least some of the) methods and analysis procedures are known in advance of data collection.

     

    Manuscripts considered for publication will be reviewed for their presentation and analysis of new empirical data, expert use of appropriate research methods, and rigorous development of theoretical arguments relevant to problems in language studies — with the guiding criterion of enhancing existing knowledge. Methods sections must be detailed enough to allow the replication of research. Theoretical accounts should be internally consistent.

     

    Manuscripts will be considered for publication with the understanding that all pertinent sources of support and information have been acknowledged and that the manuscript is being submitted to Language Learning only. Language Learning will not consider articles that have been published or are being considered for publication elsewhere. Authors are asked to submit a cover letter to the editor with their manuscript submission. In it, they should provide relevant background to the submission and disclose any special circumstances that may raise potential ethical considerations, such as any conflicts of interest or any overlap of the present submission with text or data appearing elsewhere in related published or under-review work.

  • Submission requirements. Submissions must match the aims, scope, and style requirements of the journal. Manuscripts submitted must conform to the specifications of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition.

     
    Language Learning requires the submitting author (only) to provide an ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript.

    Title Page. Please submit a title page along with your submission, using this template.

    Manuscript Anonymising. Authors should pay careful attention to preparing their submission to allow anonymised peer review. Language Learning supports several manuscript anonymising alternatives, in recognition of the fact that manuscripts vary in the extent to which self-citations are used. Authors are required to choose one or a combination of the following anonymising alternatives in order to prevent delays in initial manuscript processing. Authors are also required to clearly indicate their anonymising choice in the accompanying cover letter.

    • Full Anonymising. In the body of the manuscript, replace all citations and references which contain all authors' and coauthors' names and the publication year by writing: Author (xxxx) or (Author, xxxx). In the reference list, ensure that the entire citation is anonymised (including year, title, journal, etc.) and that the citation is located at the top of the reference list.
    • Partial Anonymising. Replace only a portion of selected references by writing Author (xxxx) or (Author, xxxx) to the extent that authors' anonymity can be best preserved. In the reference list, keep full citation for the references that remained intact in the body of the manuscript but anonymise those references (including year, title, journal, etc.) you chose to omit, placing them at the top of the reference list.
    • Referring to Own Work in the Third Person. In many cases, reviewers need to have access to essential citations in a manuscript, particularly when these are used to motivate current work. If these citations are based on authors' and/or coauthors' prior research, anonymising such work might not only be revealing of authors' identity but might also make it difficult for reviewers to adequately evaluate manuscripts. In such cases, in the body of the manuscript, authors should describe their own and their coauthors' relevant work in the third person, as one normally would refer to other researchers' work in a published manuscript. In the list of references, provide full citations for own work, placing those in the appropriate location alphabetically.

     

    Again, in the cover letter to the Editors, clearly indicate how each submission has been anonymised in order to avoid processing delays.

     

    Review process. Language Learning processes manuscripts in a prompt and professional fashion. To expedite peer reviews and ensure the highest level of expertise in the review process, some manuscripts will be forwarded to one of the Associate Editors who will serve as the action editor in those cases. Articles suitable for the journal are typically sent to at least three reviewers drawn from among experts in the field. The names of all reviewers consulted are printed in the journal annually.

    Wiley Education Publishing Network
    This journal participates in the Wiley Education publishing network. At the Editors’ discretion, suitable papers not accepted by Language Learning may be recommended for referral to another journal(s) in the network. Thus, if your manuscript is not accepted, you may be given the opportunity to transfer your manuscript plus the reviews to another Wiley journal participating in the scheme. Authors decide whether to accept the referral, with the option to transfer their paper with or without revisions. Once the referral is accepted, submission happens automatically, along with any previous reviewer reports, thereby relieving pressure on the peer review process. While a transfer does not guarantee acceptance, it may lead to a successful outcome for authors by helping them to find a route to publication.

    Submission of manuscripts. Manuscripts and accompanying materials should be submitted online at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/langl. Full instructions and support are available on the site, and a user ID and password can be obtained on the first visit. Support can be contacted by phone (888-503-1050), e-mail or via the “Get Help Now” link. If you cannot submit online, please contact the Editorial Office by e-mail: ma3228@nau.edu

    Preprint Policy
    Please find the Wiley preprint policy here.
    This journal accepts articles previously published on preprint servers.
    Language Learning will consider for review articles previously available as preprints. Authors may also post the submitted version of a manuscript to a preprint server at any time. Authors are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article. 

    Please note that Language Learning operates a double-anonymous peer review process whereby both authors and reviewers are anonymous to each other. Preprints of the authors' work may be available online, but we request that reviewers respect the intention and spirit of the double-anonymous process that we aim to uphold at Language Learning.

    Shared Research Materials and Data Policy for Accepted Articles. Language Learning encourages accepted authors to upload their data collection materials and/or data to the IRIS database (http://www.iris-database.org). IRIS is an online repository for data collection materials used for second language research. This includes data elicitation instruments such as interview and observation schedules, language tests, pictures, questionnaires, software scripts, URL links, word lists, pedagogical interventions, and so on. After an article has been formally accepted, the authors can upload their instrument(s) with an ‘in press’ reference, and the IRIS team will add page numbers to the reference after they are available. The sharing of research instrumentation benefits the research community and helps authors and journals increase the visibility of their published research.

     

    Early View. Language Learning articles are published online through Early View in advance of their appearance in a print issue — see Early View articles.

    Pronouns on Published Articles. Authors have an opportunity to have their pronouns added to the byline of their published articles. We recommend that authors state their pronouns within the title page of their submission. Authors will never be required to include their pronouns; it will always be optional for the author. Furthermore, authors may add/edit/remove their pronouns at any stage upon request, even following publication. Our editorial and production teams will use discretion in recognizing that changes in pronouns may be of a sensitive and private nature. Accordingly, to protect the author’s privacy, we will not publish a correction notice to the paper, and we will not notify co-authors of the change. Authors should contact the journal’s Editorial Office with their requests for changing pronouns.

    Author Name Change Policy. In cases where authors wish to change their name following publication, Wiley will update and republish the paper and redeliver the updated metadata to indexing services. Our editorial and production teams will use discretion in recognizing that name changes may be of a sensitive and private nature for various reasons including (but not limited to) alignment with gender identity, or as a result of marriage, divorce, or religious conversion. Accordingly, to protect the author’s privacy, we will not publish a correction notice to the paper, and we will not notify co-authors of the change. Authors should contact the journal’s Editorial Office with their name change request. 

  • OASIS Initiative. In partnership with Wiley, Language Learning is proud to support and participate in The Open Accessible Summaries in Language Studies (OASIS) initiative, which aims to make language-related research openly available and easily accessible, both physically and conceptually. As part of the OASIS initiative, Language Learning now publishes Accessible Summaries of all published manuscripts.

     

    What Are Accessible Summaries? Written in nontechnical language, accessible summaries provide information about each manuscript’s goals, its design and approach, and its results, highlighting findings that may be of interest to those outside academia, such as language educators. In line with the objectives and scope of the OASIS initiative, the overarching aim of Accessible Summaries at Language Learning is to help make research findings more readily available to wider audiences and to increase the accessibility of the research content and of its possible interpretations for diverse stakeholders.

     

    Producing an Accessible Summary. The authors of all manuscripts accepted for publication in Language Learning are asked to produce a short, nontechnical summary of their accepted article, following this template (based on the materials available through OASIS). The summary must include information under the following subheadings: 

    • What this research was about and why it is important 
    • What the researchers did
    • What the researchers found
    • Things to consider

     

    The summary must fit onto a single US Letter size page (8.5 × 11 inches or 21.6 × 27.9 cm, with all margins set at 0.50 inches or 1.25 cm), corresponding to approximately 600 words. The template is already set with these margins and the correct page size. 

     

    Authors can ask others (e.g., doctoral students or colleagues) to collaborate in writing the summary. Additional guidance on writing effective accessible summaries, including sample annotated summaries, is available through the OASIS initiative at https://oasis-database.org/help.

     

    At the copy-editing stage, each summary will be checked by members of the Language Learning Editorial Team for fidelity to the study and compatibility with the summary requirements. The final version of the summary will be published at the end of the published article in PDF and in print formats, and a publicly accessible link to the summary will be available (as Supporting Information) from the issue’s table of contents on the Language Learning site (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14679922/current).

     

    Language Learning sends every summary to OASIS (https://oasis-database.org). OASIS makes the summaries highly visible through international and national professional associations and easily searchable via a wide range of discipline-relevant keywords. The summary on OASIS will also be linked back to the full article on the Language Learning website.

  • Recognizing the importance of research transparency and data sharing to knowledge-building, Language Learning would like to join the open science movement by encouraging the following open science practices.

     

    Sharing of data, materials, research instruments and their accessibility. Language Learning encourages authors to share the data, materials, research instruments, and other artefacts supporting the results in their study by archiving them in an appropriate public repository. Two examples of qualifying public, open-access databases of data, research instruments, and materials are the IRIS digital repository and the Open Science Framework repository. Authors who archive the data, materials, research instruments, testing protocols, and/or other research artefacts used in their study should include an accessibility statement with a link to the repository they have used, which will qualify the article for one or more Open Science badges (see below for details).

     

    Open Science badges. In partnership with the non-profit Center for Open Science (COS), we offer all authors submitting their manuscripts to Language Learning access to the following three open science practices — Open Materials, Open Data, and Preregistered Research Designs. We also award all qualifying authors open science badges recognizing their contributions to the open science movement. The open science practices and associated award badges, as implemented by the Center for Open Science and supported by Language Learning, are the following:

    Open Materials Badge The Open Materials badge recognizes researchers who share their research instruments and materials in a publicly-accessible format, providing sufficient information for researchers to reproduce procedures and analyses of published research studies. In the field of second language research, a qualifying public, open-access database of research instruments and materials is the IRIS digital repository of data collection materials (http://www.iris-database.org).
    Open Data Badge The Open Data badge recognizes researchers who make their data publicly available, providing sufficient description of the data to allow researchers to reproduce research findings of published research studies. Two examples of qualifying public, open-access databases for data sharing are the IRIS digital repository and the Open Science Framework repository. Numerous other data-sharing repositories are available through various Dataverse networks (e.g.,http://dataverse.org) and hundreds of other databases available through the Registry of Research Data Repositories (http://www.re3data.org).
    Preregistered Badge The Preregistered badge recognizes researchers who preregister their research plans (research design and data analysis plan) prior to engaging in research and who closely follow the preregistered design and data analysis plan in reporting their research findings. The criteria for earning this badge thus include a date-stamped registration of a study plan in such venues as the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io) or Clinical Trials (https://clinicaltrials.gov) and a close correspondence between the preregistered and the implemented data collection and analysis plans.

    The Open Science Framework (https://osf.io) qualifies as a public, open access repository which supports all three open science practices described above. This repository can host entire projects, including materials, data, and pre-registration protocols.

     

    Applying and qualifying for open science badges is not a requirement for publishing with Language Learning, but these badges are further incentive for authors to participate in the open science movement and thus to increase the visibility and transparency of their research. Interested authors can find information about how to qualify for each badge on the Language Learning website, under author guidelines, and in the online submission system at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/langl. Authors are asked to complete a disclosure form and submit it through the ScholarOne interface when submitting their manuscript.

     

    Language Learning is one of very few journals in the language sciences to accept manuscript submissions under the Registered Report category. On acceptance, authors will be expected to make available their materials, methods, procedures, raw data, coding, and analysis procedures in a publicly accessible and sustained file-sharing service such as IRIS and/or the OSF. As with all manuscripts submitted to Language Learning, authors will be recognized for their Open Science practices (for data, materials, and pre-registration as described in our Author Guidelines). 

  • Online production tracking is now available for your article through Wiley-Blackwell's Author Services. Author Services enables authors to track their article — once it has been accepted for publication — through the production process to publication online. Authors can check the status of their articles online and choose to receive automated e-mails at key stages of production. Authors will receive an e-mail with a unique link that enables them to register and have their article automatically added to the system. Please ensure that a complete e-mail address is provided when submitting the manuscript. Upon publication, corresponding authors can collect a gratis PDF offprint of their article from Author Services. Visit http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor for more details on online production tracking and for resources including FAQs and tips on article preparation, submission, and more.

    WALS+standard CTA/ELA and/or Open Access for hybrid titles. You may choose to publish under ther terms of the journal's standard copyright agreement, or Open Access under the terms of a Creative Commons license.
    Standard re-use and licensing rights vary by journal. Note that certain funders mandate a particular type of CC license by used. This journal uses the CC-BY/CC-BY-NC/CC-BY-NC-ND Creative Commons License.
    Self Archiving Definitions and Policies:Note that the journal's standard copyright agreement allows for self-archiving of different versions of the article under specific conditions.

  • Please direct your correspondence (please include your telephone number[s], email address, and insitutional affiliation) to the appropriate person listed below:

    For questions about journal manuscripts, contact:

    Assistant to the Editors
    Mary Akbary
    Northern Arizona University
    Department of English
    Flagstaff, AZ 86011
    USA
    e-mail: ma3228@nau.edu

     

    For submission of grant applications and questions about business matters, contact:

    Eve Zyzik
    Executive Director, Language Learning
    Humanities Academic Services
    1156 High Street
    Santa Cruz, CA 95064
    E-mail: ezyzik@ucsc.edu

     

    For questions about general editorial policy and other book series, contact:

    Lourdes Ortega
    Department of Linguistics
    Georgetown University
    1421 37th Street NW
    Poulton Hall 240
    Box 571051
    Washington, DC 20057-1051
    USA
    e-mail: Lourdes.Ortega@georgetown.edu