Plenary Talks
From Assignments Toward Publication:
Brokering Academic Writing
John Adamson
University of Niigata Prefecture
Theron Muller
University of Toyama
This paper considers conversations of the disciplines (Bazerman, 1980) regarding
disciplinary writing norms. Traditionally, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and English
for Academic Purposes (EAP) instruction focuses on academic skills generally relevant tothe classroom. Our intention here is to bridge the academic writing classroom (EAP) withwriting for publication (ESP). We realize such a perspective may provide a challenge forstudents and teachers unfamiliar with publishing norms, particularly field-specific norms,
which include editorial expectations for the presentation of manuscripts, talk aroundtexts such as author e-mail correspondence, and expectations regarding revision and coconstruction of text following editorial review. We feel the keys to overcoming thesechallenges lie in linking the classroom roles of teacher-as-writer and student-as-writerwith a network of supportive literacy brokers. The implications of this are both intra- andinterdisciplinary in nature, calling for improved interconnection between EAP instructors
and their colleagues who teach “content” courses, and a flattening of the hierarchicalrelationship that often exists between them. In terms of classroom practice, this linkage
involves a pedagogical approach that moves beyond academic text production intended
to satisfy university curriculum requirements toward preparing classroom participants towrite for academic publication.

Introduction
ESP practitioners are often called on to prepare students for specialized
professional practice. In the case of EAP, this can include preparing students for
specific academic fields with which the teacher may be unfamiliar. One of the76

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results of this situation is that EAP practice often focuses on general academic
skills. However, in preparing students to engage in a professional discipline,
their ability to perform independently in the academy may not be an accurate
predictor of their ability to do so outside the EAP classroom. Thus in this paper
we emphasize the need for increased awareness among EAP teachers of thetypes of academic skills and knowledge that specialist disciplines may demandof students, and consider the implications for EAP classroom practice thisincreased awareness may have.
This paper begins with a discussion of the implications of shifting the ESP
instructor`s pedagogical perspective from writing as product to writing as
dialogue. It then discusses the importance of taking different disciplinary norms
into account in the ESP classroom, particularly in light of the reality that many
ESP teachers are not necessarily familiar with the discipline-specific norms
their students may be expected to meet. An examination of the importance ofconsidering academic publishing as part of a professional community-based,
networked conversation follows. Finally, some of the implications of theinformation shared here for ESP pedagogic practice are discussed.

ESP: From writing as product to writing as dialog
Our first proposal is that ESP/EAP practitioners look beyond genre studies
alone as a means of helping students acquire academic literacy in English. The
traditional focus on the written genre of a discipline in teaching students, while
an essential component of this process (Bhatia, 2008), requires an extension of
the “conversation” (Bazerman, 1980, p. 656) of the discipline beyond simply
the writing instructor and student. For English as a foreign or second language(EFL/ESL) learners, this extension involves a refocusing of the dialog onto theirsocial and academic worlds to explore the counterparts with whom they interact
to produce reports, and the resources they have to access to aid the writing
process (Casanave, 2003). In this sense, the conversation with teachers implies
that textual construction should be a broader dialog (Lillis & Curry, 2010)
which prepares students for both the demands of tertiary writing, and later at
postgraduate level for publication. We argue that consultation with supervisors,
77Adamson & Muller

friends, classmates and writing tutors is an important part of the tertiary-level
writing process and that it can be useful preparation for the world of academic
publishing. There are parallels between student text construction, published text
construction and the precursors to “literacy brokers” (Lillis & Curry, 2006, p.
3) and “network brokers” (Curry & Lillis, 2010, p. 283) in tertiary education,individuals who enable students to access opportunities to publish and tonavigate the academic publication process (Curry & Lillis, 2010; Lillis & Curry,2010). Next we will consider how an understanding of discipline-specific norms
is important for the EAP classroom.

Understanding field-specific norms
The first step to understanding the disciplinary norms of students’ academic
fields is to grasp the considerable variability of norms across their respective
fields and disciplines. Table 1, which shares data extracted from Huang andChang (2008, p. 1821), shows the variability in type of publication between
six different academic fields among faculty at the University of Hong Kong
between 1998 and 1999. For teachers preparing students to work in the medical
field, for example, conference and working papers were not part of the medical
faculty output during the period examined; thus preparing students to transform
Table 1
Distribution of publication types by academic discipline
Reviews,
Conference translation,
and
other
working
writtenpapersoutput

Field

JournalarticlesBooks andmonographsBook
chapters

Physics

99

-

-

1

-

-

Medicine

90

-

2

-

5

3

Business

47

5

10

30

-

8

Education

37

8

35

20

-

-

Linguistics

13

13

9

39

26

-

English

21

3

14

56

3

3

78

Other

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conference presentations into publications would likely not fit this discipline’s
professional practices. This serves as one example of how norms in students’
fields may differ from the norms EAP specialist teachers are accustomed to.
Another source of variability across different academic fields is journal review
and editing standards, particularly those regarding the length of time taken tocomplete reviews, and acceptance and rejection rates. For example, Hargens(1990, p. 1350) describes how, among the biological sciences, represented by
Physiological Zoology, the acceptance rate was about 50% with almost all editorial
decisions (99%) made 260 days after submission. In contrast, at the American
Sociological Review, representing a social sciences journal, the acceptance
rate was under 10% at 260 days, with review and evaluation of about 10% of
submitted manuscripts ongoing, and with about 80% of submitted manuscripts
having been rejected (Hargens, 1990, p. 1350). Both these journals’ handling ofsubmissions is very different from Astrophysical Journal, representing astronomy,
where 90% of submitted papers were accepted for publication (Hargens, 1990,
p. 1350), illustrating the wide variability in journal publication practices acrossdisciplines that aspiring English students and their teachers may not be aware of.
One aspect of writing norms specific to the field of English language teaching
are those concerned with language use. In earlier research, we noted that reviewers
for three ELT journals at which we served as editors felt that language was the“most important” or “primary factor” in evaluation a paper, and that papers
submitted for review should be written in the “appropriate” “correct” “academic
genre,” “style” or “tone” (Adamson & Muller, 2008, p. 48). The standards being
applied as ‘correct’ is an ongoing issue of debate (see, for example, Belcher,2007; Lillis, Maygar, & Robinson-Pant, 2010) within ELT literature. There
are also signs of “non-normative” (Nair-Venugopal, 2000, p. 207) language use
becoming acceptable in the field, potentially indicating emerging EIL standards,
or the acceptance of language that does not necessarily conform to center norms(Canagarajah, 1996). However, while ELT standards may be shifting, standardsof evaluating language acceptable for publication in other fields appear to havechanged. For example, Rozycki & Johnson (2012) examined the language used
in Best Paper Award Winners in Software and Hardware Engineering, where79Adamson & Muller

editors, reviewers, and authors are often all multilingual EIL scholars, and foundconsiderable variability in language use compared to center norms, or what theytermed “non-canonical grammar” (p. 157) while the editors of these publications
believed “If the English is ‘good enough’ it can be published” (p. 165). This again
points to the need for English teachers working with students whose academic
specialties differ from their own to be sensitive to the norms those students may
be expected to meet. For example, in the case of engineering students, classroom
time could be more fruitfully devoted to aspects of writing outside meeting
requirements for center-standard appropriate sentence level syntax.
Finally, with respect to non-native speakers seeking to publish in English, it
is important for teachers to understand that the conversation in the literature
on writing for publication often concerns publication in Anglophone-center
journals, what Curry and Lillis (2004) refer to as the “international academic”(p. 674) community. However, this represents only one of seven communities
which Curry and Lillis (2004) found their European scholar participants to bewriting for; their research participants felt all seven of those communities were
important to them for different reasons. For example, Curry and Lillis’ (2004)
participants felt it important to address their fellow national academics in their
L1 and to address the national applied community in their L1; they would also
write for national level journals in English; they addressed an international
community in their L1, such as a Spanish scholar writing for a Mexican Spanish
language publication; they addressed an intranational academic community
in English, such as writing for a European regional journal; and they also, insome cases, wrote for an academic community in a language other than their
L1 or English. Teachers working with students who will be writing in English
for national level journals may thus want to start by considering the language
standards they will have to meet for these publications, rather than encouraging
students to begin their careers writing for an elusive international audience.

Publishing as a networked conversation
Along with an understanding of field-specific norms, issues surrounding thestudent-as-author’s journey into publication need to be explored. The first issue
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concerns the view of writing as a type of social interaction. Lea and Street (1998,
p. 159) proposed that the development of literacy be seen as “social practice”
which involves more than the teacher-centered dialogue characteristic oftraditional writing classes. This firstly implies that distinctions between writing
and speaking are artificial (Lillis, 2013), as both constitute essential interactivemeans to develop writing. The social aspect of writing development thus requires
engagement with a community of people connected to the student (Lillis,2013). Conceptualizing the type of community being engaged is important
here, as it involves several different notions of what community represents. The
analogy of a “speech” community (Hymes, 1974) brings to mind the idea of alarger, inclusive community of language users defined by their common speechcharacteristics; in contrast, envisaging a “discourse” community (Swales, 1990)
separates language users into specific disciplinary fields based on genre norms.
Alternatively, use of “communities of practice” (Lave & Wenger, 1991) focuseson the common tasks of users in a group and how they are positioned within it.
A more recent conceptualization of the interconnectivity of social activity draws
on the metaphor of the “social network” (Wellman & Berkowitz, 1998), which
addresses the ways in which people are connected within a community.
For the development of writing for publication, this networking analogy
looks to raise awareness of the potential of accessing various “brokers” (Lillis& Curry, 2010, p. 13) to aid writing students. Moving away from teacherdependence for advice brings students into contact with “literacy brokers”(Lillis & Curry, 2010, p. 93), and “network brokers” (Curry & Lillis, 2010, p.
283), the former giving students advice on their writing, and the latter on whoto contact (other brokers, journals) and what “resources” (Lillis & Curry, 2010,
p. 54) to use, for example, library and internet literature, conferences to attend,
and people of potential interest, with the type of brokering connections varying
from long-term relationships to temporary collaborations. In brief, awareness of
the importance of developing brokering connections and the skills necessary toaccomplishing this task equip students-as-authors for the challenges of academic
publishing.

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Adamson & Muller

Moving toward a publishing pedagogy in ESPThis last section concerns conceptualizing an ESP publishing pedagogy whichhelps prepare students for a broad range of scholarly activity. We argue that an
over-emphasis on publication for high prestige international journals may set
unattainable publication goals, and that emerging scholars may benefit morefrom engaging in a wider range of scholarly activities. Evaluating scholars bycounting the number of articles they have placed in international journals is aninsufficient means of understanding their overall academic activity; this needs tobe challenged by other forms of evaluation; for example, “scholar factor” (Bourne& Fink, 2008) which accounts for publication in various types of journals andvalues academic contributions through blogs and newsletters, workshop andconference participation, collaborative writing and presentation, and creation ofacademic support groups. Moving from evaluation of international publications
to a broader-based evaluation rubric would reward active networking skills
and serve to familiarize scholars with disciplinary norms. This would provide ameans of nurturing long-term academic relationships and, in turn, competences
which eventually lead to development of academic literacy in the student’s field.
In brief, a publishing pedagogy embraces four factors: firstly, it encourages
awareness of multiple audiences and avenues towards publishing; secondly,
it encourages awareness of how the student-as-author positions himself and ispositioned by other brokers, for example, editors; thirdly, it values collaborative
work and departs from traditional teacher-student dependence; finally, it
discusses plagiarism and alternative views which center scholarship on what
Flowerdew and Li (2007) term “language re-use” (p. 441).

Conclusions
In this paper we have sought to explain how it is preferable to conceptualize
writing as a social-constructive activity rather than as the product of an analysis
of completed texts representative of a particular genre. In our view, writing is asocial process not unlike speaking, and thus represents an act which inherently
requires engaging with others. At the student level, counterparts can be fellow
students, faculty, and staff, while at the professional academic level one engages
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with fellow professionals in the pursuit of academic publication. Re-envisioning
writing as a conversation brings with it the need to understand the differencesin norms and expectations for practice within and between different fields
and disciplines; for EAP instructors, this may mean becoming familiar withnorms different from those to which they are accustomed. This, in turn, leads
to the need to view scholarly activity more holistically, taking into account who
students and scholars engage and how they do so, and to move beyond a strict
adherence to evaluation of completed written manuscripts.

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Authors’ bios
John Adamson is an Associate Professor at the University of Niigata Prefecture in
Japan . He is Senior Associate Editor of Asian EFL Journal and Chief Editor of The
Linguistics Journal. He received his Ed.D. from Leicester University in the U.K.
and is currently interested in interdisciplinarity and developing journal editorial
systems. adamson@unii.ac.jp
Theron Muller, University of Toyama, is a teacher and researcher based in Japan.
He is lead editor of Innovating EFL Teaching in Asia, Palgrave Macmillan
and teaches the online MASH Academic Publishing course. He is interested inacademic publishing research and TEFL/TESL classroom-based research. theron@theronmuller.com.
Received: November 24, 2011
Accepted: March 14, 201485