Scopus: The Craze of the Town!

Scopus has become the buzz word among the ELT community in the region in the past few years. When I go to ELT conferences in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, for example, people would come to me and ask lots of questions about Scopus-Indexed journals:

Where can I find information about Scopus-journals?
Which scopus-indexed journals should I send my paper to?
How long is the review process?
Do I need to pay to get my paper published?
What is the rejection rates of Scopus-indexed journals?
What happens if my paper gets rejected? Can I re-submit it?

At first, I wasn’t very sure why they were so eager (anxious, in fact) to get their papers published in Scopus journals. Most of them are faculty members who have been teaching for many years and I would say most, if not all, are excellent language educators who have developed deep knowledge about ELT in their respective countries.

They enjoy teaching and working with their students, they enjoy writing reflective journals and many go to ELT conferences to share and exchange ideas with other language educators. Some have even written and published in local journals.

But now, all of sudden they need to publish in Scopus-Indexed journals. Why is that? Here are 3 reasons:

Reason 1: Many universities now require their faculty to publish in Scopus-indexed journals in order to increase the universities’ international standing. University ranking organizations such as Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) use Scopus’ large database to assess the research output of universities.

Reason 2: For annual appraisal purposes, faculty often need to show evidence of their publications in Scopus-indexed journals.

Reason 3: For tenure and other promotion purposes, faculty are required to show a strong record of publications in Scopus- (or SSCI) journals.

Given the growing importance of getting published in Scopus-indexed journals, I have put together a short list of these journals, which might be useful to get your first or second papers published.

These are legitimate journals, managed and curated by language scholars who work in universities of good international standing. Their rejection rates are reasonably high, but not as high as the more established Scopus-indexed journals such as Applied Linguistics, System and TESOL Quarterly, whose rejection rates might be in the 95%-97% range.

Before you submit your manuscript:

Do your due diligence before you submit your manuscripts to any journals, including Scopus-indexed journals. This is to ensure that you don’t end up publishing in predatory journals.

Read the ‘Aim and Purpose’ of the journal carefully. Some accept highly academic research papers, while others accept conceptual or pedagogically oriented papers.

Read the ‘Author’s Guide’ of the journal carefully and take note of the submission requirements (e.g., length, format, style etc). If you don’t follow their guidelines, your manuscripts may get an immediate rejection.

A list of Scopus-indexed journals

1. LEARN Journal, Thailand

2. PASAA, Thailand

3..TEFLIN Journal, Indonesia

4. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, Indonesia

5. Pertanika, Malaysia

6. TESL-EJ (Teaching English as a Second Language Electronic Journal)

7. MEXTESOL Journal, Mexico

8. Journal of Asia TEFL, Korea

9. eFLT, Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, Singapore

10. RELC Journal, Singapore (High rejection rate)

For a longer list of Scopus- and SSCI-indexed L2 journals:
Scopus-and SSCI-indexed L2 journals

For practical tips on how you can increase your citation count, click here.

Tips For Improving Your Citation Count

The 10,000 hour Rule in ELT research