Publishing research in the international context

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a study to explore the Egyptian social science scholars’ academic writing behaviour in local and international context. Understanding the challenges that scholars in social science and humanities face while publishing in the international outlets would help to suggest strategies to improve academic writing in non-Arabic journals. Design/methodology/approach This study deployed mixed methods approach. The quantitative data were collected using an online questionnaire. Interviews were conducted with a group of scholars in the five faculties to elucidate the publishing behaviour of the sample. Findings The interviews and the questionnaire showed that social science scholars in Egypt prefer local publishing outlets. The number of scholars who publish internationally is very low compared to scholars who publish locally. Scholars who tried to publish internationally faced many challenges, such as language barriers, lack of academic writing skills and lack of appropriate training. Research limitations/implications This study was conducted in one university in Egypt. While the results can be generalised to Egyptian and Middle East universities, it cannot be generalised to non-Arab communities because of the differences in culture and education system. Originality/value This study provides insight on publishing practices in the international context among social science scholars in Egypt using a mixed methods approach. This helped to capture the scholarly publishing practices and the attitude toward international publishing and the main challenges that scholars face who attempt to publish in international outlets.

Exploring the scholarly communication styles of Arab social science and humanities scholars

“…The participants pointed out that travelling abroad helped them to build scholarly contacts at the international level, which at some point led to working with those contacts on research projects. These results are consistent with the literature on the topic, which found that Egyptian scholars who collaborated in research projects with international peers had travelled abroad and had good English skills (Shehata & Eldakar, 2018).…”

“…Many studies have mentioned the same issues (Al-Wreikat et al, 2015;Elgllab & Shehata, 2017 ;Shehata & Eldakar, 2018); however, no efforts are being undertaken to overcome this issue.…”

“…Notably, all of the respondents reported publishing in Arabic language, while far fewer published in the English language. The lower level of English publishing has previously been reported as being a result of the level of English language proficiency and the speed of publishing as Arabic journals accept papers within 3 months on average (Shehata & Eldakar, 2018). Interestingly, many scholars who have published in English language journals have published many papers in journals classified as predatory journals.…”

“…showed that scholarly publishing, which is the main scholarly communication activity, is endangered by the existence of predatory journals as an increasing number of Arab scholars share their research through predatory outlets. Another study by Shehata and Eldakar (2018) pointed out that Arab scholars avoid international publishing outlets because of the difficulty of publishing and language barriers.…”

“…In addition, scholars from Arabic language departments were not publishing in English language journals, which is understandable given the nature of their department. Most participants who were highly engaged in international publishing were found to have studied abroad, which explains their familiarity with international publishing practices (Shehata & Eldakar, 2018).…”