Study Of Mainland China Scholars' Problems In Writing For International Publication

In the present academic world, English has become the dominant language for international publication. For scholars worldwide, if they want to establish footholds in the international academic world, writing for international publication has become the overwhelming choice. As China has been becoming increasingly important in the international stage, it has become very urgent for China to improve its academic influence on the international academic world. In recent years, China has taken a serial of measures to achieve this goal. For example, for the universities in China, the quality and quantity of the articles published in international journals by all their scholars have become an important index for assessing their comprehensive strength by the Ministry of Education; for individual scholar, writing for international publication is a very important way to enter the international academic world, meanwhile, the quality and quantity of the article one has published is closely related to one's job promotion, research achievements and bonus, etc. In addition, publishing academic articles in international journals is also a graduation requirement for doctoral students in some universities. However, compared with scholars in some western countries, the Mainland China scholars'contributions to the international academic world in terms of the quality and quantity of articles they had published still lag far behind. Therefore, it has become an urgent problem as to how to improve Mainland China scholars'influence on the international academic world.In order to get to know the real picture of Mainland China scholars'international publication practice, the present study chooses 16 teachers chosen from a comprehensive research-based elite university in Mainland China as participants. They are from 8 different disciplines such as physics, material engineering, biomedical engineering, computer science ad history, etc. Their academic career varies from seven years to more than twenty years. They represent Mainland China scholars in terms of research field and research experience to some extent. This study is mainly a qualitative study, through semi-structured interviews with these teachers, the problems met by Mainland China scholars in the process of writing for international publication in English were investigated; comparisons were made with scholars in other NNES areas so as to find out if the problems met by all those NNES scholars are the same, if not, what special problems are Mainland China scholars facing?The study aims to provide some reference for those involved in the education world for their policy-making and further researches.The findings show that seven problems are standing on the way of Mainland China scholars'writing for international publication, namely, 1 linguistic obstacles; 2 divergence from the accepted norms of international article ;3 time-consuming nature of writing for international publication; 4 lack of adequate databases and experimental equipment; 5 lack of strategies for writing English academic article; 6 lack of enough cooperation in the process of writing for international publication;7 lack of confidence and familiarity with target international journals. Among these problems, problem1 to 4 are common problems for scholars in Mainland China as well as other NNES areas; while problem5 to 7 are only met by scholars in Mainland China.The present study offered some recommendations to scholars in Mainland China as well as scholars in other NNES countries, ESP practitioners, journal editors and reviewers, and universities administrators respectively. It is of some significance in helping these NNES scholars successfully participate in international publications.