Copy Editor Volunteer Program

Opportunities for Professional Development and CV Building

Reading in a Foreign Language is seeking individuals to perform copyediting of manuscripts that have been accepted for publication in the journal. Copyeditors ensure that manuscripts adhere to the guidelines of the American Psychological Association’s Publication Manual 7th Edition. This is a service to the professional community and can benefit the copyeditors by familiarizing them with an important part of the publication process for an academic journal while also learning about the latest research and best practices for publishing scholarly papers in the field. Copyediting provides an important opportunity for professional development and for building one’s curriculum vitae.

Eligibility

Graduate students, researchers, and faculty in the fields of applied linguistics, linguistics, second and foreign language education, and second language reading are eligible to become copyeditors. Applications can be found here. After the application has been submitted, candidates will receive an email with a link to complete a copyediting exercise. This exercise should take approximately 20 minutes to complete and will be submitted to the Editors of Reading in a Foreign Language. Satisfactory completion of the task moves them to the training stage, where they are given a full article or review to copyedit.

Copyediting Assignments

Once a volunteer copyeditor has successfully gone through the training process, they are added to a copyeditor database. Copyediting assignments will be made on a rolling basis. This means that when a manuscript is ready for copyediting a name will be chosen at random from the list database. If this person is not available, then the next person on the list will be asked, and so on. All efforts will be made to assign manuscripts to copyedit in a fair and expedient manner.

Evidence of Copyediting

After successfully completing a manuscript, an electronic copy-editing certificate will be presented to the copyeditors as proof of their service.

Reading in a Foreign Language is published by the National Foreign Language Resource Center (NFLRC) at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa (UHM) with additional support from the Center for Language & Technology at UHM and Texas Tech University. The journal is currently indexed in Web of Science and Scopus.

SCImago Journal & Country Rank

Updated February 13, 2025
 

Forthcoming Reviews

Fisher, D., Frey, N., & Lapp, D. (2022). Teaching reading: A playbook for developing skilled readers through word recognition and language comprehension. Corwin. 

Pae, H.K. (2020). Script effects as the hidden drive of the mind, cognition, and culture. With a Foreword by Charles A. Perfetti. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
 
Shiotsu, T. (2010). Components of L2 reading: Linguistic and processing factors in the reading test performances of Japanese EFL learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 
Zhou, J. (2024). Extensive reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Seeking Reviews

Akhavan, N. (2023) Small group reading with multilingual learners. Differentiating instruction in 20 minutes a day. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Akhavan, N. (2024) The big book of tasks for English language development, grades K-8. Lessons and activities that invite learners to read, write, speak, and listen. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Bavendiek, U., Mentchen, S., Mossmann, C. & Paulus, D. (Eds.)(2022), Ab Initio language teaching in British higher education: The case of German. London: UCL Press.

Blackwood, R., Røyneland, U. (Eds.) (2021).  Spaces of multilingualism. New York: Routledge. 

Bruggink, M., Swart, N., van der Lee, A., Segers, E. (2025) Teaching reading comprehension in a digital world. Evidence-based contributions using PIRLS and digital texts. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Dubreil, S., Malinowski, D., Maxim, H.M. (2023) Spatializing language studies. Pedagogical approaches in the linguistic landscape. Cham: Springer.

Gorter, D., Cenoz, J. (2023). A panorama of linguistic landscape studies. Bristol/Jackson: Multilingual Matters. 

I-Wen Su, L., Cheung, H., Wu, J. R. W. (Eds.) (2021). Rethinking EMI. Multidisciplinary perspectives from Chinese-speaking regions. London: Routledge. 

Kusiak, M. (2013). Reading comprehension in Polish and English: Evidence from an introspective study. Cracow: Jagiellonian University Press.

Makalela, L, & White, G. (Eds.)(2021). Rethinking language use in digital Africa: Technology and communication in Sub-Saharan Africa. Bristol, United Kingdom: Multilingual Matters. 

Nunn, N., Sedláčková, J., Tóthová, L., & Yang, J. (2022). Deafinitely English: Online materials for teachers of English as a Foreign Language for Deaf, deaf and hard of hearing students. Brno: Masaryk University Press. 

Stroupe, R., & Roosman, L. (Eds.)(2025). Applied Linguistics in the Indonesian context. Singapore: Springer Nature. 

Summer, T. & Böttger, H. (2022). English in primary education: Concepts and practice. Bamberg: University of Bamberg Press. 

In French: 
Sokołowicz, M., Zatorska, I. (Eds.) (2019). Quand regarder fait lire. Nouveaux défis dans l’enseignement des littératures de langue française. Warsaw: Warsaw University Press. 
 
In German:
Maik Philipp, Simone Jambor-Fahlen (Eds.) (2022). Lesen: Prozess- und produktperspektiven von der wortebene bis zu multiplen texten. Basel: Belz Juventa. 

Schrott, A., Wolf, J., Pflüger, Ch. (2023). Textkomplexität und Textverstehen. Studien zur Verständlichkeit von Texten. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH. 

In Spanish:
Ruiz de Zarobe, Y., Ruiz de Zarobe, L. (Eds.) (2019). La lectura en lengua extranjera. Barcelona: Ediciones Octaedro.

 

A free E-book copy will be made available to the reviewer of the books listed above. The call is primarily open to academics, researchers in areas related to foreign language reading (applied linguistics, pedagogy, psychology, etc.), teachers and students (both doctoral and graduate students), however, the list is not exhaustive.

About Reviews

You are invited to review books not listed here as well, as long as they are related to reading in a foreign language. Should you choose to review a book on L1 reading you ought to emphasize how the research presented therein is relevant to foreign language reading. You can also review books published in your own countries, and not necessarily in English, as long as your review is written in English. A précis in the language in which the book is written may accompany the full English-language review. In fact, we are open to reviews of books from all over the world in order to follow and popularize current research on foreign language reading.

The reviews section of Reading in a Foreign Language generally accepts three types of books:

  • academic publications, research reports, etc. for example, on the psychological processes involved in reading, vocabulary retention, cross-linguistic interaction in reading, etc.
  • resources for teachers: books written from a more practical angle, for example, on how to design reading activities, how to choose reading materials, how to motivate learners to read, etc.
  • resources for learners, especially textbooks developing reading skills, for example, preparing learners for the reading component of language exams, such as the CPE exam in English. The guidelines for writing a review are available here:
    https://nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl/submission-guidelines/#reviews


As Reading in a Foreign Language has switched to a continuous publishing mode, there are no specific deadlines.

Contact Teresa Maria Wlosowicz melomane.plurilingue@gmail.com if you are interested in having material reviewed as a publisher or as an author, or if you wish to serve as a reviewer.

Please visit https://opensubmissions.org/index.php/rfl to submit your manuscripts.

 

Call for Contributors “Readings on L2 Reading” Annual Column

Reading in a Foreign Language is seeking contributors for the “Readings on L2 Reading” annual column. This annual feature offers an archive of articles published in other venues during the past year and serves as a valuable tool to readers of Reading in a Foreign Language. This is an excellent opportunity to provide service to the profession while reviewing the latest research in the field of second and foreign language reading. All interested researchers are encouraged to apply, especially graduate students and early career researchers.  

Shenika Harris, sharris@lindenwood.edu