Submissions

Submission Guidelines

Manuscript Submission

VLI publishes original research regarding vocabulary learning, instruction and assessment. 

Feature articles should be no more than 7000 words in length, including references and abstract. All tables, figures, appendices, images, and audio/video files should be both included in the text and uploaded separately. Short articles of up to 3000 words including brief reports, summaries or commentaries are also welcome. General guidelines are available for reporting on both quantitative and qualitative research (see below).

Manuscripts that have already been published or are being considered for publication elsewhere will not be considered. If your submission is part of a larger study or if you have used the same data in whole or in part in other papers published or under review, you must write a cover letter stating where the paper is published/under review and describing how the current submission to VLI makes a different and distinct contribution to the field.

Authors are strongly encouraged to take advantage of the electronic format by including links to materials within and outside the manuscript. Authors are strongly encouraged to have their manuscripts proofread by an editor familiar with English academic prose and APA guidelines. Both American and British English spelling conventions are acceptable.

All submissions are subject to peer-review. Editors review manuscripts to ensure basic requirements are met, and that the work is of sufficient quality to merit external review. This process typically takes 1-2 weeks, at which point authors are informed of the outcome. Submissions which meet these requirements are sent out for blind peer review by 2-3 experts in the field. This process takes approximately 1-2 months. Following external review, authors are sent copies of external reviewers’ comments and notified of decisions.

Authors of accepted manuscripts will assign to VLI the permanent right to electronically distribute their article, but authors will retain copyright. Authors may republish their work (in print and/or electronic format) provided VLI is recognized as the original publisher.

The editors of VLI reserve the right to make editorial changes to manuscripts accepted for publication for the sake of style or clarity. Authors will be consulted only if the changes are substantive.

Minor edits will be made within 14 days after publication. Post-publication changes involving content will only be made regarding issues of comprehensibility and be accompanied by notes of revision. Broken links will be fixed at the author’s request.

Guidelines for Articles Reporting on Quantitative Research

Quantitative research should generally include the following sections:

• A Background section which, above all, makes a compelling case for the relevance and need for the current
  study. It should state the research question to be answered, contextualize the research by describing the
  underlying theoretical framework, review previous studies where necessary, and overview the nature of the
  current experiment and the nature of the statistical analyses employed.
• A Methods section that describes the participants, and details of experimental design.
• A Results section that details the form of analysis and descriptive statistics, including significance
  and effect size.
• A Discussion section that includes interpretation of the results and their theoretical implications
• A Conclusion that summarizes the general implications of the research, notes limitations of the study and
  gives suggestions for further research.
• References (following APA guidelines)
• Appendices of instrument(s) used
• Please include an Abstract that covers the following:
  • Background
  • Aims
  • Sample
  • Methods
  • Results
  • Conclusions

Guidelines for Articles Reporting on Qualitative Research

The VLI editors recommend that authors of manuscripts based on qualitative research generally include the
following sections in their articles:

• A Background section which gives a clear statement of the study’s research question, makes a compelling
  case for its relevance to the field, and contextualizes it prior research and a theoretical framework.
• A Methods section giving a description of the methodological tradition of the study, participants and research
  site as well as a detailed description of the procedures employed for data collection and analysis.
• A report of Findings that details their implications.
• Conclusions summarizing implications and noting limitations of the study and avenues for future research.
• Please include an Abstract that covers the following:
  • Background
  • Aims
  • Sample
  • Methods
  • Findings
  • Conclusions

Publication Frequency

Vocabulary Learning and Instruction publishes two issues a year.

Formatting & Layout

Manuscripts must be submitted as a .docx document file. Any information identifying the authors should be removed from the primary manuscript document. Reference to work from the authors should be marked as “Author1, 20xx” or “Author2, 20x”‘ in the citations, and references should be included as “Author1. (20xx).” or “Author2. (20xx).” Please do not number subsections. Heading levels should be obvious by using the heading functions in MS Word or equivalent. Please do not try to emulate the formatting of the published articles. All references and citations must be in accordance with the APA 7th edition. Where possible, DOIs should be included as https://doi.org/xxx.xxx for all references.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. There are no article processing charges (APCs) for this journal. The open access statement is available from here.

Publication Ethics

Note that all submissions to this journal must be original work that has not been published or currently under review elsewhere. Full information about the peer review process and publication ethics is available from here.