Research Digest

Aspiring and Inspiring Community ofPublishing
Joseph Falout
Nihon University
For at least a few years, the back pages of On CUE (now the OnCUE Journal)
waited to publish a submission to the Research Digest (RD) section. Nonecame. The section was intended for promoting research papers already publishedwithin university in-house journals (often called kiyo in Japanese) so that thearticles “wouldn’t get lost,” according to the submission guidelines back then,due to narrow distribution and readership. RD in those days would have offered
only a single paragraph in which to publicize one’s article. But without use, thisdormant section seemed a wasted opportunity for authors and readers within theCUE community.
Then under the editorial supervision of Mike Hood, who had been working
on establishing a vetting process for the journal’s Features section that we benefit
from today, I joined in 2003 and developed the RD section beyond mere backpage summaries of published research. At that time, I envisioned switching fromsummaries to full articles in a journal section akin to The Language Teacher’s
Reader’s Forum, which follows the Feature Article section. I thought back thenthat if authors felt their articles were being “lost” through in-house publishingand distribution, then they might be more inclined to skip those in-housesubmissions and instead submit to an RD section that offered a place to publish
entire, original articles that would be distributed and read more widely andperhaps hold more weight on a resume or promotions review.
Moreover, these articles might have some meta-purpose—research about how
to research. That way the CUE community could form a sustainable community40

Aspiring and Inspiring Community of Publishing, OnCUE Journal, 7(1), pages 40-45

of publishing with members teaching and learning from each other about
researching. Relatively inexperienced researchers would have a venue in which
they could aspire to share what they recently learned, while seasoned researchers
could publish their wisdom to inspire us all. Since the first articles appeared in
RD in 2004 and through now, I believe the section has been meeting these goals.
Recently, however, the submission rate has been decreasing. So with this present
article I would like to encourage potential contributors to join (or rejoin) thiscommunity of publishing.
Looking back at past articles, I can generalize three approaches to writing
about research that offer “perspectives on applying theory to practice in second
language acquisition (SLA) or a related field,” as the submission guidelines specify
now. The approaches that previous authors have taken are (1) ways of doing
research, (2) literature reviews, and (3) primary research studies. Each approach
is further described below, while the exemplary articles given in summary are all
downloadable in whole from the CUE homepage at http://jaltcue.org/back_issues.

Ways of Doing Research

The first and most common type of article in RD delineates the purposes andprocedures of researching in a specific way, written clearly enough for readers
to start trying it themselves. Included are struggles, successes, criticisms, andadvantages of using the research procedure described. For example, AndyCurtis and Kathleen Bailey (2009) wrote about diary studies, which are a wayof conducting research through analyzing journal entries. They presented a fullbackground for the use of diary studies in SLA, methodical ways to collect andanalyze the data, and then steps to present the research findings. ChristopherLong (2006) brought insights into researching attitudes through a quantitative
experimental method called the matched-guise technique. Long compared
two types of matched-guise research designs using specific examples frompublished studies. The presentation of the second type included his own originalvariation on the technique. Tim Murphey and his collaborators (Murphey, Kim,
Kusatani, Lawson, Sugawara, & Yamaura, 2008) strove to convince unpublished41Falout

teachers that they have valuable ideas that when published can contribute to theprofessional development of readers and the writers themselves. Their article,“Publishing Ecologies,” models its own main message of encouraging teachers
to collaborate on writing to try publishing together. Finally, Richard Sampson(2011) took a theoretical approach of using complexity theory for classroombased action research into learner motivation. This article features accessible
explanations of this recent, exciting, and abstruse theoretical expansion ofcomplexity theory into SLA and related bodies of research.

Literature Reviews

The second type of article in RD focuses upon a sample of research studies in aparticular area. Literature reviews are also known as secondary research, in which
selected papers are presented in a cohesive fashion, such as by categorization andsummary of research procedures and results. Secondary research usually contains
some critical perspective for a theoretically-grounded argument or purpose.
For example, David McLoughlin (2007) overviewed attribution theory and its
connections to learners’ feelings and behaviors related to learning. He suggested
that teachers might try to retrain learners’ maladaptive thinking patterns into
positive ones for increased motivation and achievement. Similarly, Manami
Suzuki (2007) illustrated from self-efficacy studies the uses and effects oftraining learners’ outlooks for more motivating, optimistic, and psychologically
healthy learning experiences. She finished with concrete examples of learning
strategy applications that teachers might try in the classroom. For a Festschrift
article, a publication honoring an academic’s contributions to their field, Eddy
White (2006) outlined key concepts in Corder’s 1967 paper, and explained
their significant and lasting influence on many current notions in the field ofSLA. White did this by tracing the lineage from Corder’s older, original ideas
as they evolved into more recent theoretical areas of language development andpedagogy that researchers may be familiar with today.

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Aspiring and Inspiring Community of Publishing, OnCUE Journal, 7(1), pages 40-45

Primary Research Studies

The third type of article in RD investigates an aspect of SLA or related field
through a primary research approach and usually offers a metacognitive
perspective on the research process. In other words, these studies perform
experimental research plus bring a reflective description about the research
process itself. For example, George Harrison (2007) compared three different
types of vocabulary tests, first in terms of practicality for teachers in constructing
and administering them, and second in terms of validity to see if the tests werefairly and accurately measuring what they were intended to measure. Besides
concluding with specific recommendations of what type of tests might be usefulfor certain classrooms situations, this article modeled for teacher-researchers how
they might develop, score, and critique their tests and test-making processes in aself-conscious and methodical way. Kaoru Kobayashi (2006) analyzed the use ofmetatext within research papers of popular, respected applied linguistics journals,
making a comparison between papers written in English and those in Japanese.
This cross-cultural study was conducted to help teachers of Japanese students
in English academic writing courses. Last, David Ockert (2009) explained theprocess of designing, administering, and verifying a substantive scale survey foruse in classroom-based research of student attitudes. He walked teachers throughthe process and potential pitfalls by presenting the article as a case study of one of
his own attempts of using a substantive scale survey with his students.

Your CUE

Potential contributors might ask, “What makes a good RD article?” My response
would be an article that can help readers with the following:• Understand the concepts and their importance within SLA research andpractice• Gain schemata for their next encounter with the concepts• Start investigating these concepts on their own with a set of key references• Apply the concepts in their research and teaching practices

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Thank you very much for joining me in this retrospective look at the last 10years of Research Digest. I hope this sparks your inte​rest in contributing to ouraspiring and inspiring community of publishing.

References

Corder, S. P. (1967). The significance of learners’ errors. International Review ofApplied Linguistics, 4, 19-27.
Curtis, A., & Bailey, K. M. (2009). Diary studies. OnCUE Journal, 3(1), 67-85.
Harrison, G. M. (2007). Practicality and validity in three achievement tests ofvocabulary. OnCUE Journal, 1(1), 39-54.
Kobayashi, K. (2006). Use of metatext in English and Japanese research articles:
A contrastive study. On CUE, 14(1), 48-54.
Long, C. (2006). Quantitative methods for investigating attitudes: The
matched-guise technique. On CUE, 14(1), 43-47.
McLoughlin, D. (2007). Attribution theory and learner motivation: Can
students be guided towards making more adaptive causal attributions?
OnCUE Journal, 1(1), 30-38.
Murphey, T., Kim, M., Kusutani, S., Lawson, J., Sugawara, M., & Yamaura, N.
(2008). Publishing ecologies. OnCUE Journal, 2(3), 206-220.
Ockert, D. (2009). Substantive scale development: How to design, administer,and verify a Likert scale questionnaire for a research project. OnCUE
Journal, 3(3), 259-271.
Sampson, R. J. (2011). Complexity theory, action research, and the study of
EFL learner motivation. OnCUE Journal, 5(1), 24-36.
Suzuki, M. (2007). Developing students’ self-efficacy beliefs for their language
learning and academic achievement. On CUE, 15(1), 21-27.
White, E. (2006). SLA beginnings: The significance of Corder’s 1967 article.
On CUE, 14(2), 23-27.

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Aspiring and Inspiring Community of Publishing, OnCUE Journal, 7(1), pages 40-45

Author’s bio

Joseph Falout edits for the Asian EFL Journal and JALT’s OnCUE Journal, thelatter for which he created the current purpose and design of the Research Digest
section. He researches, publishes, and presents internationally regarding social
educational psychology of language learning and teaching, with an interest towardpedagogical applications. researchdigest@gmail.com

Received date is February 26, 2013.
Accepted date is March 24, 2013.

Editor’s note: Joe has brought up some old issues in CUE’s publication history, andI’m glad we still have them available online for readers to access. However, if you
look at the back issues page, you will see we have some gaps in the On CUE record. If
you have any of those issues, please send a copy or scanned image to me so we can plug
the holes. We already have some of these being prepared to better serve CUE readers.
Thank you.

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