Manuscript Guidelines

The Baltic Journal of English Language, Culture and Literature (ISBN 1691-9971 (Print); ISSN 2501-0395 (Online)) is a multidisciplinary international scientific journal in general linguistics, applied linguistics, literature and culture. It invites papers pertaining to the study of the English language, literature and culture, especially papers which are of relevance in the Baltic region.

Download Manuscript  Guidelines in Microsoft Word format


GENERAL INFORMATION

To facilitate the peer reviewing process, it is essential that contributors adhere to the guidelines presented below. Papers which do not meet the requirements of these guidelines may be returned to the author(s) for revision or, possibly, rejected.

When submitting the paper for review, no information that identifies the author(s) should be included in the paper. Contributors are requested not to write: ‘We concluded that ... (Ozols and Brown, 2011).’, but prefer ‘According to Ozols and Brown (2011), ...’.

The papers should be written in English. The spelling must be consistent (either in British or US English). Author names and references written in non-Latin script must be transliterated in Latin characters, for example, Barmina and Verhovskaya (2000), in the body of the paper. An article’s author names, authors’ affiliations, keywords and acknowledgements (or sponsors/fund information) should be in English. References should be in English or Roman script. While Roman script is accepted, diacritic signs can be rejected by databases.

Format: Microsoft Word compatible with Microsoft Office 2010 or newer.

Length: preferably up to 15 pages.

Submission: 2 electronic copies should be submitted: one full copy and one blind copy (a copy without the information about the author)

  • Full copy:
    Surname_name_1 (add numbers to show the number of the version), for example, the first version will be named Kalnina_Viola_1_full_copy_1_March
    If there are two authors then use ‘and’, for example, Kalnina_Viola_and_Kalnins_Janis_1_full_copy_1_March
  • Blind copy:
    for example, Kalnina_Viola_1_blind_copy_1_March or Kalnina_Viola_and_Kalnins_Janis_1_blind_copy_1_March 

The copies should be sent as email attachments to the Managing Editor Dr. Monta Farneste: Monta.Farneste@lu.lv


DOCUMENT STRUCTURE AND FORMATING

For guidance, see also the published papers on the journal’s website.

Document margins: 2.0 cm for top, bottom and right margins; 3.0 cm for left margin

Title: Times New Roman, 16 point, upper case, bold centred (no underlining)

Author(s): Name(s) Surname (Times New Roman, 12 point, upper case, bold, centred)
                     Institution, Country (Times New Roman, 11 point, sentence case, centred)

  • If there are two authors, separate the names (and institutions) with ‘and’. If there are more than two authors, separate them with commas and only the last two authors (and institutions) with ‘and’.

Abstract: The heading Abstract (Times New Roman, 11 point, bold, aligned left) is followed by a full stop and written on the same line as the first sentence. The text (Times New Roman, 11 point, aligned left, single spacing) should not be longer than 200 words (i.e. a summary in 1-2 sentences of introduction, methods, results, conclusions). Add one additional line space between abstract and key words.

Key words: The heading Key words (Times New Roman, 11 point, bold, aligned left) is followed by a colon, listing 5-7 key words, with no full stop at the end, for example,
                      Key words: discourse analysis, letter writing, enquiry letters, ESP, tertiary level

Main text: Times New Roman, 12 point, justified, single spacing

  • Each paragraph is indented by 1 cm (use Format -> Paragraph -> Indentation -> Special -> First line in Microsoft Word), except for the first line after the title and headings.
  • Use no extra space between paragraphs.
  • Do not use headers or footers (i.e. do not use footnotes). You can use endnotes after Conclusions if needed, for example, Notes and refer to then (see Note 1).
  • Italics are used to highlight key information and to indicate terms or the titles of books (the titles of books are not put in inverted commas).
  • Abbreviations are introduced in parentheses following the full word or long title at first mention and used thereafter.
  • When giving examples outside of parentheses, please, use the full form ‘for example’.
  • For date and number ranges, please use hyphens, for example, 151-165 or 5 October 2019-25 November 2019.

Headings: use headings (Times New Roman, 12 point, upper case, aligned left) where appropriate, for example, INTRODUCTION, THEORETICAL BACKGROUND, METHODS AND MATERIALS, RESULTS AND DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS, REFERENCES, APPENDIX 1. Do not number these and other first-level headings.

  • Use Arabic numbers in front of sub-headings (Times New Roman, 12 point, upper case, italic, aligned left), for example, 1 SUBJECTS, 2 PROCEDURE.
  • Do not use full stops after headings.
  • Use one line space before and after first-level headings.

Analysed texts and sample sentences: in order to cite the analysed texts, acronyms may be used, for example, (T1, T2 or A1, A2), but the acronym has to be introduced first, for example, ‘Thirty articles (henceforth As) were chosen for analysis. The volume of A1 and A2 was…’.

  • All sample sentences are introduced first, for example, As shown in Example 1 (henceforth E1), the link verbs were used most frequently (15 instances out of 30) in the present simple tense:

            [1] She’s a very charming and pretty girl.  [A1]

  • The whole sample is not italicised. Italics are used to highlight key words in samples.

Figures and Tables: do not just copy and paste from Excel, but rather make sure they are well configured within the main text. Figures and tables are separated from the main text with an extra line before and after.

  • Each figure and table have a caption (Times New Roman, 11 point, aligned left, single spaced) consisting of the indication Table or Figure as well as an Arabic number (both in italic) and a title (in bold), for example, Figure 1 Sample of an essay.
  • The maximum number of figures and tables is five each.
  • Captions of tables are written above, whereas the captions of figures are written below the data.
  • Text within tables is written in Times New Roman, 11 point with single spacing.

Photographs: we reserve the right to omit photographs.

References: The heading REFERENCES (Times New Roman, 12 point, upper case, aligned left) follows the main text and precedes the list of sources used (Times New Roman, 11 point, aligned left with a hanging indent of 1cm, single spacing, no space between lines). For the hanging indent use Format -> Paragraph -> Indentation -> Special -> Hanging 1 cm in Microsoft Word.

Appendices (if any): The heading APPENDIX 1 (Times New Roman, 12 point, upper case, aligned left) is followed by the title of the appendix, for example, APPENDIX 1 QUESTIONNAIRE.

  • Appendix text: Times New Roman, 11 point, aligned left, single spacing

Acknowledgements (e.g., for financial support): The heading ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (Times New Roman, 12 point, upper case, aligned left) is followed by the text in Times New Roman, 11 point, aligned left, single spacing.

Author Information: 1-2 sentences about the author(s) at the end of the document (Times New Roman, 11 point, aligned left, single spacing).

  • name surname (bold), scientific degree(s) and position in parentheses, affiliation, country, research field(s), ORCID ID, email address, for example,

    Monta Farneste (Dr. Paed., Assoc. Prof. in Applied Linguistics) is currently working at the University of Latvia. Her research interests include written communication, communicative grammar, language acquisition.
    ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0752-5021
    Email: monta.farneste@lu.lv


REFERENCING

The author(s) is/are responsible for crediting all sources used (e.g., the authors of the theories, the authors of any other text or data, direct and indirect quotations) while writing the research paper. The sources must be cited both in the main text of the paper (as in-text citations) and in the list of references.

In-text citations:

  • In-text citations should follow the format: (author surname, year: page number(s)), with page ranges given in full, for example, 51-58 instead of 51-8.
  • If the author’s surname appears in the sentence, the in-text citation should follow after it; in this case, the name can be omitted in the citation. If a citation relates to several sentences, the text starts with the surname(s), but the in-text citation with surname(s), year and page number(s) stands at the end of the last sentence it refers to.
  • The use of ‘ibid.’ is allowed when citing the same work consecutively. However, the full citation has to be given at the start of a new page, for example, (ibid.: 56-57) or (ibid.).
  • If more than one source is cited, separate them with semicolons and arrange them in chronological order; add a letter for sources with the same author and same year, for example, (Brown, 2002: 5; White, 2005a: 8-10; White, 2005b: 8).
  • Initials are used only when two authors have the same surname, for example, M. Kalnina and S. Kalnina, appear in the in-text citation (Kalnina, M. and Kalnina, S., 2008); initials for two or more first names require spaces between them, for example, (Jordan, R. R.).
  • If there are more than three authors, all their surnames should appear in the first citation of the work. Afterwards, only the first author should be mentioned followed by ‘et al.’, for example, (Waters et al., 1999). All the authors should be named in the reference list.
  • Unknown publishing dates are shown by ‘n.d.’, for example, (Brown, n.d.: 5).
  • If a work does not have an author, the full title (italicised) is used instead, for example, (Oxford Dictionary, 2013); long dictionary titles are given in full at first mention and abbreviated thereafter with the abbreviation italicised, for example, (Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture, 1992) and (LDELC, 1992).
  • To refer to an Internet source without an author and a title, ‘Online’ should be written followed by a running Arabic number, for example, (Online 1); in the reference list, such Internet sources appear in numeric order.
  • When referring to other works within the same context, use ‘cf.’ (meaning compare); to give examples of works use ‘e.g.’ (for example), with no space between the letters. Both are only used within parentheses.
  • For a work cited in another work use (surname, year, cited in surname, year: page number(s)), for example, (Brown, 1906, cited in White 2004: 7). If the quote is only being paraphrased, use ‘discussed in’, for example, (Black, 1995, discussed in White, 2008: 58).
  • Quotations: use inverted commas (‘...’). Double quotation marks ("…”) are used only for quotes within quotes. The in-text citation follows either the author’s surname, if it is mentioned in the sentence, or it follows the quotation after the closing quotation mark. Put a full stop after the parentheses, if they are placed at the end of the sentence/quote or after the closing quotation mark, see examples below.
When he entered the classroom and said hello, he asked his niece: ‘How are you, darling?’ (Rodriguez, 2013: 100).
To use the example of Rodriguez (2013: 100): ‘When he entered the classroom and said hello, he asked his niece: “How are you?”’.
Yule (1996: 3) defines pragmatics as ‘[t]he study of “speaker meaning”’.
Pragmatics are defined as ‘[t]he study of “speaker meaning”’ (Yule, 1996: 3).
  • Omitted text is shown by an ellipsis in square brackets, i.e. [...] with a space before and after.
  • Long quotations (3 and more lines) are displayed as separate text blocks on a new line, i.e. indented from the left side 1 cm, leaving one extra line before and after the quote. The in-text citation is placed after the last punctuation mark. There is no punctuation mark after it.
  • For quotes that have been translated indicate the translator after the page number(s) within the citation, for example, (Brown, 2002: 3; trans. mine).
  • Legal documents should be cited according to follow the format:
Treaties and charters – (Treaty/charter name, year), for example, (Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, 2016).
Conventions – (Governing body, year), for example, (United Nations, 2006).
Directives, regulations and decisions — (‘shortened legislation name’, year), for example, (‘Council Directive 1992/2/EC’, 1999).
  • If a print source of the above is cited, please state page numbers in the in-text citation, for example, (United Nations, 2006: 52).
  • If the name of the author or the name of the legislation is mentioned in the sentence, the in-text citation should follow it and only contain the year and page numbers (if applicable). 
  • When citing an e-book (either on an e-reader such as the Kindle or online in an e-book format such as  epub), please use page numbers where available. If the book does not use page numbers, please use the chapter number or paragraph number, or a combination thereof. 
  • In-text citation: (author, year: page number) or (author, year: chapter number, paragraph number)
(Goodwin, 2022: 146) or (Lowry, 2018: ch. 10, para. 37) 

References:

All sources cited in the text must be included; do not include sources that have not been cited.

  • The list of sources is formatted in Times New Roman, 11 point, aligned left with a hanging indent of 1 cm, single spacing, no space between lines). For the hanging indent use
    Format -> Paragraph -> Indentation -> Special -> Hanging 1 cm in Microsoft Word.
  • The transcription of authors’ surnames (e.g., Russian) appears in square brackets before the reference; these items appear in alphabetical order of the transcription.
  • Foreign-language titles are translated in English in square brackets and italicised.
  • The name of the translator is indicated in parentheses after the title, for example, (trans. C. Mauron)
  • Capitalisation: main sources (book and journal titles) are written in title case and italicised, while chapters and journal articles are written in sentence case; titles and subtitles are divided by a colon and followed by the first word of the subtitle in lower case.
  • For journal articles and books that are not yet published use (forthcoming) after the planned year of publication or, if the year is yet unknown, after the author’s name, for example,
Maglie, R. B. and Centonze, L. (forthcoming) Reframing language, … or Brown, C. (2023) (forthcoming) Language … .
  • Publishing locations: two publishing locations are separated by ‘and’; for more than two locations use ‘a.o.’ after the first one, for example, New York a.o.; for US publishing locations give the city followed by the respective state abbreviation, for example, Newark, NJ: Publisher.
  • Edition information follows after the title and is separated by a comma, for example, English as a Global Language, 2nd ed.
  • Personal communications (including unpublished collections), manuscripts in preparation and other unpublished data are not cited in the reference list but may be mentioned in the text in parentheses.
  • Use separate headings for non-theoretical sources, for example, TOOLS, DICTIONARIES, DOCUMENTS.
  • Internet sources without author and title are listed under the sub-heading INTERNET SOURCES (Times New Roman, 12 point, upper case, aligned left); use DOI addresses where possible.
  • Use a link shortener to wrap up the link, for example, https://www.shorturl.at/ and https://tinyurl.com/app/
  • Texts that were used for analysis in the paper are listed under the sub-heading BOOKS ANALYSED or SOURCES ANALYSED or TEXTS ANALYSED (Times New Roman, 12 point, upper case, aligned left).
  • EU and other documents and legislation follow different formats according to their type:
Treaties and charters — Treaty name (year) Official Journal Series initial issue, date, page numbers orTreaty name (year) Official Journal Series initial issue, date, URL, [Accessed on ...].
Conventions — Governing body (year) “Convention name” Official Journal/Series, volume (issue), page numbers or URL, [Accessed on …].
Directives, regulations and decisions — ‘Legislation name including the type of legislation and its number (year) Official Journal issue, page numbers or URL, [Accessed on …].
  • Sources in the reference list are indicated according to the following format:

Reference examples: all items aligned left, no space between lines

Books:

Conboy, M. (2007) The Language of the News. London and New York, NY: Routledge.
Crystal, D. (2003) English as a Global Language, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dowman, J. and Shepheard, J. (2002) Teaching English as a Foreign Language. London: Hodder and Staughton.
Laurent, E. (2019) Sortir de la croissance [Moving out of Growth]. Paris: LLL.
Medvedeva, T. S., Oparin, M. V. and Medvedeva, D. I. (2011) Klyuchevyie kontseptyi nemetskoy lingvokulturyi [Key Concepts of the German Linguo-culture]. Izhevsk: Udmurt University Press. (In Russian).
Paklons, J. (1980) Tulkošanas vēstures un teorijas jautājumi [Questions of Translation History and Theory]. Daugavpils: Daugavpils Pedagoģiskais institūts.

Books without author:

[LDELC] Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture (1992) Essex: Longman.

Edited books:

Celce-Murcia, M. (ed.), (2001) Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language. Boston, MA: Heinle and Heinle.

Chapter in an edited book:

Coady, J. (1979) A psycholinguistic model of the ESL reader. In R. Mackay, B. Barkman and R. R. Jordan (eds.) Teaching Reading Skills (pp. 219-223). London: Longman.
Messick, S. (1989) Validity. In R. L. Linn (ed.) Educational Measurement, 3rd ed. (pp. 13-104). New York, NY: American Council on Education and Macmillan.

Journal articles:

Brown, B. (1994) Reading for research. Journal of Education, 1 (1): 21-24.

Internet sources with author and title (journals etc.):

Brown, B. (2003) Research. London: University of London. Available from http://www.oup.com/elt/global/ [Accessed on 2 January 2019].
Maglie, R. B. and Centonze, L. (forthcoming in 2021) Reframing language, disrupting aging: a corpus-assisted multimodal critical discourse study. Working with Older People, 25 (3): 253-264. Available from https://doi.org/10.1108/WWOP-06-2021-0032 [Accessed on 20 September 2021].

Newspaper articles:

Klingon, J. (2002) Starfleet command. Startrek News, Friday 3rd October: 27.
Mullan, J. (2012a) Small World by David Lodge. Week One: National Stereotypes. The Guardian 7: n.p.

PhD theses:

Bovri, B. (2011) ‘Man, you split wood like a girl.’ Gender Politics in ‘Y: The Last Man’. PhD thesis. Ghent: Ghent University.
Hughes, C. L. M. (2008) The Treatment of the Body in the Fiction of J. M. Coetzee. PhD thesis. Available from http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za [Accessed on 29 September 2024].

Internet sources:

[Online 1] Available from http://www.oup.com/elt/global/ [Accessed on 2 January 2024].
[Online 2] ...

Books analysed (or sources analysed or texts analysed):

Trappe, T. and Tullis, G. (2005) Intelligent Business. Coursebook. Intermediate. Business English. Harlow: Pearson Education.

Tools:

AI generated text: Title. Year. Place of publication: Publisher. Software: Platform. 
ChatGPT (2023) San Francisco: OpenAI. ChatGPT: Microsoft Windows. An in-text citation: (OpenAI 2023)
Sinclair, S. and Rockwell, G. (2016) Voyant Tools. Available from http://voyant-tools.org/ [Last accessed on 25 July 2024].

Corpora:

[BNC] The British National Corpus. Available from http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/ [Accessed on 2 March 2024].
[COCA] The Corpus of Contemporary American English. Available from https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/ [Accessed on 2 March 2024].
[GloWbE] Davies, M. (2013) Corpus of Global Web-based English: 1.9 Billion Words from Speakers in 20 Countries. Available from https://www.englishcorpora.org/glowbe/ [Last accessed on 25 July 2024].

Documents:

‘Directive (EU) 2017/1564 of the European Parliament and of the Council’ (2017) Official Journal L 242, 13 September. Available from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/LV/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32017L1564 [Accessed on 11 September 2024].
Council directive 1999/2/EC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States concerning foods and food ingredients treated with ionising radiation (1999) Official Journal L66, 16.
‘Regulation of the Cabinet of Ministers No. 445 “Procedures for Posting Information on the Internet by Institutions”’ (2020) Latvijas Vēstnesis, 136, 17 July. Available from https://likumi.lv/ta/id/316109-kartiba-kada-iestades-ievieto-informaciju-interneta [Accessed on 29 December 2023].
United Nations (2006) ‘Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ Treaty Series, 2515 (3) Available from https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities-2.html [Accessed on 29 December 2023].
Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2016) Official Journal C202, 7 June, 389-405.
 
E-book:
 
Lowry, L. (2018) The Giver. Boston, NY: Clarion Books. Kindle Edition.
 
Chapter in an edited e-book:
 
Goodwin, J. (2022) Teaching Pronunciation. In M. Celce-Murcia, D. M. Brinton and M. A. Snow (eds.) Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language (pp. 136-153). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning. Kindle Edition. 


SAMPLE of the list

REFERENCES

Flower, R. (1991) Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press. Abingdon: Routledge.
Julian, P. M. (2011) Appraising through someone else’s words: the evaluative power of quotations in news reports. Discourse & Society, 22 (6): 766-780. Available from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0957926511411697 [Accessed on 12 February 2024]. 
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2015) Research into practice: grammar learning and teaching. Language Teaching, 48.2: 263-280.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2013) Transfer of learning transformed. Language Learning, 63, Special Issue: 107-129.

ONLINE SOURCES

[Online 1] Available from https://www.cambridge.org/core [Accessed on 12 February 2024].

TOOLS

ChatGPT (2023) San Francisco: OpenAI. ChatGPT: Microsoft Windows. An in-text citation: (OpenAI 2023) 
Sinclair, S. and Rockwell, G. (2016) Voyant Tools. Available from http://voyant-tools.org/ [Last accessed on 25 July 2024].

TEXTS ANALYSED

[T 1]  Elliot, L. (2019) George Soros: China is using tech advances to repress its people. The Guardian, 24 January. Available from https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/24/george-soros-china-using-tech-advances-to-repress-its-people [Accessed on 12 February 2024].
[T 2]  Graham, R. (2017) Global press freedom plunges to worst level this century. The Guardian, 30 November. Available from https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/nov/30/press-freedom-at-all-time-low-journalist-safety-article-19-v-dem-study [Accessed on 12 February 2024].