Guidance in publishing in international journals for UEL students

Abstract

Publishing in an international journal, particularly in social science and law fields, is an arduous and challenging yet rewarding journey. Basic knowledge may boost the pace of this process; nevertheless, often early career scholars and students (or so-called young authors as a whole) do not sufficiently equip such. To provide a useful perspective for preparing to write and publish in international academic journals related to legal research by students and scholars (young authors), this article presents experience from the author in the publishing process including feedback received and advice from renowned scholars. This paper shall focus on some essential and pragmatic parts in publishing, including sorting and selecting journals, approaches to writing for an international journal, specifically, what is the topic that should be covered, and challenges for young UEL authors to publish in a journal and solutions for such. This paper shall not mention some theoretical matters, for instance, what the importance and the role of research for young authors are. This paper shall only cover the basic understanding of publishing in an international journal related to social science and jurisprudence and shall not cover issues related to publication in conference proceedings, book chapters, or topics unrelated to social science and jurisprudence. This paper concludes that (i) young UEL authors are capable of publishing internationally; (ii) International journals can be classified based on (ii.1) requirements on content and structure, or (ii.2) quality assessment; (iii) authors need (iii.1) to find journal interests, (iii.2) choose interesting and novel topics; (iv). Difficulties of young authors include an insufficient understanding of the international publication system, limited knowledge and skills. Therefore, it is necessary to equip them with the basic understanding of international publication, restructure the subject `Scientific/ Jurisprudence research skills' and the subject system of UEL, encourage and improve international publications.