Unexpected Emails to Submit Your Work: Spam or Legitimate Offers? The Implications for Novice English L2 Writers

Abstract

This article analyzes the discourse of what have been termed ‘predatory publishers’, with a corpus of emails sent to scholars by hitherto unknown publishers. Equipped with sociolinguistic and discourse analytic tools, we argue that the interpretation of these texts as spam or as legitimate messages may not be as straightforward an operation as one may initially believe. We suggest that English L2 scholars might potentially be more affected by publishers who engage in these email practices in several ways, which we identify and discuss. However, we argue that examining academic inequalities in scholarly publishing based exclusively on the native/non-native English speaker divide might not be sufficient, nor may it be enough to simply raise awareness about such publishers. Instead, we argue in favor of a more sociologically informed analysis of academic publishing, something that we see as a necessary first step if we wish to enhance more democratic means of access to key resources in publishing.

Writing for Academic Journals in the Digital Era

“…The publisher may, however, pursue someone who does not reply with a message such as:Did you get my last email about Invitation for paper submission? We hereby forward it again, please kindly confirm receipt (Soler and Cooper, 2019: 6).…”

Peer review under the ethical lens: possible questions

“…For the authors at the beginning of their career or from countries unfamiliar with the process, such arguments are not helpful. Moreover, it is very likely that the rejection due to language reasons favored the predatory journals (Soler and Cooper 2019), and even their transformation of predatory publishers into proofreading services (Petrişor 2017). At the same time, the assessment of the revised manuscript by a reviewer asks for the decision whether to consider it as a new article, assess whether the initial comments were properly and fully addressed, or a combination of the two (Lovejoy et al 2011).…”

“…Za autore na početku karijere ili iz zemalja koje nisu upoznate s postupkom, takvi argumenti nisu od pomoći. Štoviše, vrlo je vjerojatno da je odbijanje zbog jezičnih razloga pogodovalo grabežljivim časopisima (Soler and Cooper 2019), pa čak i njihovoj transformaciji iz grabežljivih izdavača u lektorske servise (Petrişor 2017). U isto vrijeme, procjena ispravljenog članka od strane recenzenta zahtijeva odluku da li se on sad treba smatrati novim člankom, procjenu da li su prvobitni komentari pravilno i potpuno riješeni ili su kombinacija oba (Lovejoy et al 2011).…”

Linguistic Injustice and Global English: Some Notes From Its Role in Academic Publishing

“…Instead, I will propose that a 'both-and' approach can be more fruitful, justifying that both linguistic and non-linguistic factors are equally important in the debate, and that by adopting this approach, we might be in a better position to develop frameworks that allow us to cut deeper into the issue at hand, with sharper and more suitable tools. Before that, I will first summarise two recent articles in which I have delved into the question of ERPP from different angles (Soler and Cooper 2019;Soler 2019). This should hopefully be useful in contextualising the topic further and in clarifying the direction of my main argument in the article.…”