Australian Review of Applied Linguistics
Guidelines
ARAL Author Instructions
General
Contributions should be between 6000 - 8000 words for an article and 1500-2000 words for book reviews (inclusive of the references, tables and figures, captions, footnotes, and appendixes). They should be in English following the latest American Psychological Association (APA) style. Authors are advised to check their paper for grammatical and stylistic consistency in English before submission.
When preparing your manuscript, please order the sections in the following way: title, abstract, keywords, numbered sections and subsections, funding information (see the explanation below), acknowledgements (see the explanation below), reference list, appendixes. If the funding information or acknowledgment would interfere with double-blind peer review, you may leave those out until you prepare the final version after acceptance.
Funding information: If you received funding through a grant for the research that is discussed in the article, provide details on this, including funder name and grant number in a separate section called “Funding information” before (an Acknowledgment section and) the References.
Acknowledgments: Please add any acknowledgments (other than funding information, see above) in a separate, unnumbered section entitled “Acknowledgments”, placed before the References section.
Appendixes: Appendixes should be referred to in the text of the article. If (any of the) Appendixes are hosted online elsewhere, in a data repository or Github, they should be available at the time of submission, so that reviewers can access all the relevant information.
Declaration of generative AI for ARAL submissions
The named authors of any contribution to ARAL are ultimately responsible and accountable for the contents of the work as specified below. Any ideas presented should be original. ARAL reserves the right to reject any submission where there is evidence that AI-technologies have been used in inappropriate ways (see also the Publisher’s Ethics Statement) in the creation of the manuscript. The guidance we offer only refers to the writing process, and not to the use of AI tools to analyse and draw insights from data as part of the research process.
Using the statement below, authors should disclose in the manuscript they submit any use of AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process by following the instructions below. The author disclosure does not apply to the use of basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, references etc. If there is nothing to disclose, there is no need to add a statement.
AI and AI-assisted technologies should not be listed as an author or co-author, or be cited as an author. Authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be attributed to and performed by humans. Where authors use generative artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process, authors should only use these technologies to improve readability and language use. Applying the technology should only be done with human oversight and control, and authors should carefully review and edit any AI or AI-assisted output, as AI is not to be considered as an author because it can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete or biased.
AI disclosure instructions
Authors must disclose the use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process by adding a statement at the end of their manuscript in the core manuscript file, before the References list. The statement should be placed in a new section titled:
Declaration of contributions from Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process.
A sample statement is shown below:
During the preparation of this work the author(s) used [NAME TOOL / SERVICE] in order to [REASON]. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited all aspects of the output as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the publication.
Including third party materials
If any third-party material is included in your submission, please obtain necessary permissions from the copyright owners and include those with your submission.
Include (in the caption in case of tables/figures) a full reference to the original source. E.g.,:
Figure/Table 1. Caption. Reprinted from/Adapted from “article/book title” by Author(s), year of publication, Journal Title, volume(issue), p. xx. Copyright year, Copyright holder. Reprinted with permission from Copyright holder.
Review and publication process
If the manuscript is a good fit for the journal and meets all the submission requirements, it is then sent out to the reviewers. Please allow at least 3 months for each round of peer review.
NOTE: Until acceptance, please ensure that every time you submit your manuscript (including revisions), it is anonymised to allow for blind review. If any names of the authors are mentioned anywhere in the text or reference list, please replace those with “Author.” Please keep the year of publication, but all other elements of the reference, including co-authors, should be omitted. See also the comments on information on Funding and Acknowledgments in this respect.
If/when your paper is accepted, you will be asked to provide a final version that is prepared in line with the journal's stylesheet.
Accepted papers follow the pipeline for publication: copyediting, typesetting, proofs by the author and the editor, and publication OnlineFirst. The papers that have been published OnlineFirst are later assigned to an issue.
Submission checklist upon acceptance
When submitting the final version of your accepted manuscript, in addition to following the guidelines above and the journal's stylesheet, please be sure that your manuscript is complete and includes:
- a one-paragraph abstract of your article
- a list of approximately five keywords to aid in searching and indexing
- complete, no longer anonymised references
- funder statement and/or acknowledgment, if those were left out before for reasons of anonymity
- a short (2-3 sentence) professional profile
- an affiliation, mailing address, and email for all authors.
Any material, comments, etc. that are not intended to be available to the readers of the article, should no longer be included in the manuscript at this stage! If you have guidance or instructions for the typesetters, those should be provided separately.
ARAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR BOOK REVIEWS
Book review maximum length is 1500 -2000 words, including references (no more than 4 references). The review should integrate both critical review of the book and cogent evaluation of chapter contents using reader-friendly language. While the review should be logically presented, avoid using formulaic structure that is bland and mechanic. Rather, consider organically structuring the review with compelling statements, supported by interesting observations and discerning views that can appeal to a wider readership of ARAL.
Both solicited and unsolicited reviews are welcome. However, if you would like to submit an unsolicited book review, please contact the book review editor to discuss your expression of interest (EOI) first and provide a statement about your academic background, expertise on the reviewed topic, and experience in research publishing. Postgraduate students in PhD or MPhil programs should also provide a statement of support from a supervisor or an academic mentor in their EOI before proceeding with their unsolicited reviews.