“There’s No Discrimination, These Are Just the Rules of the Game”: Russian Scholars’ Perception of the Research Writing and Publication Process in English

Abstract

This paper reports on the study of multilingual speakers’ perception of their research writing practices in English and in their local language—Russian—and the publication process in English. It is based on interviews with 18 scholars from social sciences and humanities working in a leading university in Russia. The study discusses social factors influencing multilingual scholars’ choice of languages as well as their personal motivation to choose English as the main language of publication. Special attention is given to their attitude to proofreading as part of the publication process. The interview results suggest that, from the participants’ perspective, the benefits they gain by publishing research in English seem to outweigh costs they experience in the process of writing and publishing. The study contributes to the on-going debate about the position of multilingual scholars in the competition to publish in top-rated journals, suggesting that the traditional doctrine of linguistic injustice, from the participants’ point-of-view, does not seem to be relevant for every multilingual scholar.

A typology of research discovery tools

“…In an analogy, a statistical description of the frequency of letters in the English language would not in itself explain the historical causes behind why 'e' occurs much more often than the letter 'q' (meaning that the appearance of 'e' reproduces informational redundancy, while that of 'q' generates variety) [6]. A high degree of redundancy may arise due to flawed literature searches, due to language barriers [68,69], variation in academic networking [70], structural gender-related biases [71,72] or editors violating the norms of publication ethics [73]. Whatever the specific reason, the typology remains blind to the concrete triggers.…”

Digitalization and academic research: knowing of and using digital services and software to develop scientific papers

“…As an integral part of academic life, scholars are encouraged to write and publish (Gilmore et al, 2006), and especially, to publish in top-ranked journals (Shchemeleva, 2021) that is, journals that have a high impact factor or H-index, or three and four stars as major criteria of research output (Kuteeva and McGrath, 2014) and, consequently, to be included in the most prestigious international bibliographic databases (e.g. Gralka et al, 2019;Shchemeleva, 2021).…”

“…As an integral part of academic life, scholars are encouraged to write and publish (Gilmore et al, 2006), and especially, to publish in top-ranked journals (Shchemeleva, 2021) that is, journals that have a high impact factor or H-index, or three and four stars as major criteria of research output (Kuteeva and McGrath, 2014) and, consequently, to be included in the most prestigious international bibliographic databases (e.g. Gralka et al, 2019;Shchemeleva, 2021). Adding to the pressure to publish in top journals for not English-natives is anxiety regarding writing in English instead of the local language and having to account for non-Anglophone contexts (Curry and Lillis, 2014;Plo and P eres-Llantada, 2015).…”

“…Gralka et al. , 2019; Shchemeleva, 2021). Adding to the pressure to publish in top journals for not English-natives is anxiety regarding writing in English instead of the local language and having to account for non-Anglophone contexts (Curry and Lillis, 2014; Plo and Péres-Llantada, 2015).…”

“I’m Applying Mathematical Methods to Social Sciences” : Norms in Disciplinary Writing and Methodological Paradigms

“…The present study is part of a larger project aimed at investigating L2 scholars' research writing practices (Shchemeleva, 2021). It was inspired by the case study that explored L2 scholars' perception of disciplinary norms of epistemic stance expression in political science (Shchemeleva, 2020).…”