Writing for publication in English among doctoral

students in an EFL context: challenges and practices

Abderrazzaq BAZAR1, Hassan BELHIAH 2, Anissa Elhaffari 3 , and Anass Moussa4
1 Doctoral student, Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco
2Associate Professor of English and Linguistics, Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco
3 Doctoral student, Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco
4 Doctoral student, Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco

Abstract. With the increasing expansion of the role of English as the pre-
eminent language of academic publication, publishing in internationally
reputable journals has become a necessity for researchers in order to
disseminate their research discoveries among the international scientific
community, gain tenure, and help increase their universities’ ranking. However,
researchers from non-native English-speaking countries find themselves
linguistically disadvantaged compared to their native English-speaking
counterparts. In Morocco, the challenge of writing in English seems to be
significant given the weak status of English within the language policy of the
country, since, barring a few exceptions, French and Arabic are the media of
instruction in public education. This study explores the challenges encountered
by Moroccan doctoral students in their pursuit to author and publish articles in
international journals, as well as the practices adopted to overcome these
challenges. Data were collected using a questionnaire addressed to doctoral
students and a focus group interview. The results show that the majority of
students felt linguistically disadvantaged and needed support to overcome the
different hurdles encountered in writing in English. The study highlights the
strategies deployed by students to enter their discourse communities and offers
recommendations that will enable aspiring scholars in EFL contexts to succeed
with scholarly publication in English.

Keywords. Discourse communities, non-native English-speaking writers,

English scholarly publication, North African scholars, doctoral students

1. Introduction

The status of English as the pre-eminent language of science and technology has now become indisputable,
while national languages have been seen to undergo a decline in scientific publications with global perspectives
(Di Bitetti & Ferreras, 2017; R’boul, 2022). As a result, publishing in English has become noteworthy and a
vital criterion in scholars’ academic promotion as well as in the pursuit to be recognized internationally in
their research communities (Huang, 2010; Shamsi & Osam. 2022), yet, researchers in different fields ofstudy,
especially non-natives, struggle to publish their studies in journals that adopt English as the language of
publication. Publishing in top-tier journals is challenging both to native and non-native speakers of English
as the authors are entering a new discourse community and have to compete with authors around the world.
This requires not only adequate proficiency in General English, but also mastery of the specific discourse in
one’s field of inquiry, in addition to presenting an original idea. This results in fierce competitiveness among
researchers within each domain. Non-native English speaking (NNES) researchers, especially, findthemselves
disadvantaged, as they have to compete with native English authors, who benefit from the linguistic advantage
when it comes to scientific publications (Swales, 1990; Flowerdew, 2019). To position themselves as rightful
and capable writers, NNESwriters have to negotiate critical issues pertinent to culture, language, and power
(Song, 2014).
 Admittedly, NNES researchers are crucial contributors to the global scholarship in different domains.
Language barriers, however, can prevent these scholars from sharing their essential results with the global
scientific community. For Moroccan doctoral researchers, the onus of writing in English seems greater owing
to the fact that French rather than English is the language of instruction in colleges of sciences and
engineering. While some research has beendone in different contexts, on the challenges faced by novice
researchers to enter their discourse communities, no previous study has explored the issue within the North
African context. This study, thus, seeks to broaden our understanding of this issue, by exploring the challenges
as wellas practices of Moroccan doctoral researchers in publishing their research in English.
2. Non-native speakers’ challenges in publishing in English
A number of studies have explored the challenges encountered by non-native researchers in publishing their
research in English (Flowerdew, 1999, 2000, 2001; Azizah & Budiman, 2017; Li, 2006; Phothongsunan,
2016; Salager-Meyer, 2014). Three core challenges were identified: discursive, non-discursive, and other
context-related challenges. Gosden (1992), for instance, explained that journal editors recognized the use of
linking and logical transitions, in addition to correct grammatical forms and accurate lexical choice, as
challenging areas to NNES. Flowerdew (1999, 2000) showed that linguistic difficulties as well as familiarity
with mainstream scholarly community discourse proved difficult to Hong Kong Chinese doctoral researchers.
Specifically, researchers were unable to choose from the appropriate academic repertoire, use argumentative
language effectively, and display mastery of appropriate style.
Azizah & Budiman (2017) found that grammar, structuring of arguments, and developing ideas, relating
text to audience (choice of the appropriate words or diction) as well as making claims were main discursive
aspects that proved challenging to graduate students writing in English. Similar findings were reached by
Habibie (2015), who maintained that the knowledge of discursive aspects of academic writing and
disciplinary discourse were the main difficulties encountered by non-native scholars. In the same vein,
Cennetkuşu (2017) found that international students at a graduate school in the US faced the challenge of
using appropriate terminology, mastering grammar and transitions, and displaying clarity in their written
productions.
Other studies have explored challenges pertaining to scholarly research or writing skills. Li (2006)
investigated the practices of NNES graduate students of physics in publishing in English. Their study showed
that participants’ main challenges involved inability to participate in disciplinary discussions as they
experienced difficulties in using the appropriate language to communicate with journals’ “gatekeepers”.
Research on Thai NESS researchers’ writing skills showed that they experienced problems in language and
text structuring, citations, referencing, lack of analytical skills, lack of motivation, problems in dealing with
plagiarism, and interference of psychological and emotional factors ( Phothongsunan, 2016). Similarly,
Purwanto et al. (2021) found that Indonesian doctoral researchers encountered various obstacles in writing
for international scholarly journals. These challenges included receiving negative feedback from journals’
reviewers, lack of funding to carry out research, lengthy reply time from journals, inadequate English writing
skills, insufficient time to write, limited skills to follow through the submission process, high publication
fees, limited references, and restricted technological skills. Other aspects hampering NNES’ pursuit to
publish in English were related to the influence of L1, the need of longer time to complete the writing tasks
(Li, 2006), and scarcity of institutional support, such as lack of training offered by universities
and/laboratories to enhance students’ writing and research and skills (Phothongsunan, 2016).
3. Non-native speakers’ attitudes and perceptions towards publishing in
English
A handful of studies have examined NNES’s attitudes and perceptions towards publishing in English. They
showed that there was a general feeling among many NNES researchers that they were linguistically inferior
compared to NES. As suggested by educational psychology and language learning motivation theories, both
a person’s perceived competence and attitudes toward learning are crucial in second language learning
(Oxford & Nyikos, 1989). Some studies argued that this feeling was attributed primarily to discursive
challenges experienced by NNES researchers (Flowerdew, 1999; Habibie, 2015; Huang, 2010). According
to Ferguson et al. (2011), the vast majority of the Spanish researchers surveyed felt disadvantaged when
publishing internationally compared to their Anglophone counterparts. Huang (2010) showed that NNES
scholars felt underprivileged in writing in English because of their perceived lack of English proficiency.
Similarly, Tardy (2010), who explored the perceptions of NNES science graduates’ regarding the role of
English in journal article publishing, revealed that participants felt unfavourably positioned compared to NES

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students due to the discursive difficulties they had to cope with and the long time devoted to learning how to
express their ideas and overcome frustration with the writing process. Highlighting the advantage of NES
researchers, Parijs (2007) argued that native English authors benefit from a “free ride” with respect to
scientific publication (p. 72). In other words, native speakers have an inherent advantage by virtue of being
natives of English, which spares them the arduous linguistic obstacles and frustrations that NNES writers
have to grapple with. The issue of the NES advantage is not separated from the controversy revolving around
the use of English as the international language of academic research. As Tardy (2004) explained, with
English becoming the most dominant language of academic publishing, NES writers have been granted a
more favourable treatment and a higher status compared to their NNES counterparts. Therefore, native
speakerism plays a crucial role in a writer’s ability to gain admittance to the international academic
community.
4. Non-native speakers’ practices to circumvent the challenges of
publishing in English
One line of scholarship has focused on exploring the strategies and practices used by NNES researchers while
attempting to publish in English. These studies revealed that experienced as well as novice NNES researchers
opt for a variety of strategies and practices to surmount the hurdles encountered when writing in English (e.g.,
Aitchison et al., 2012; Cho, 2004; Gosden, 1996; Okamura, 2006; Cheung, 2010; Li, 2007). One practice that
is generally adopted is resorting to the mother tongue. In examining the English composing strategies of
Spanish researchers, John (1987) found that these researchers tended to translate from L1 into English as an
initial step in the writing process. In like manner, Gosden (1996) revealed that researchers tended to translate
the entire papers into English after writing them in their L1. The practice of using L1 was also reported by
Cennetkuşu (2017). In exploring the effective practices of writing in English by overseas graduate students
and instructors at an American university, Cennetkuşu (2017) explained that most students searched for the
meaning of some words in their mother-tongue and subsequently translated them into the target language.
Another practice adopted by NNES was the use of linguistic/textual strategies through borrowing
rhetorical and linguistic forms or discipline-specific writing patterns from previously published texts in a
similar field (Okamura, 2006). Specifically, researchers injected a set of language chunks verbatim into their
texts. Ho (2017) explored the individual agency’s role of novice international doctoral and postdoctoral
researchers in publishing their research in English. He found that, in order to fulfil the requirements and
guidelines set by the journals, the then graduate students and postdoctoral researchers adopted various
strategies and agentive actions, such as being more involved in drafting and rewriting the manuscript,
negotiating the revisions and submission procedures required to meet the publication requirements, and
opting for external support in addition to that provided by supervisors. Other strategies to surmount the
challenges of writing and integrating their discourse communities included co-authoring (working with other
researchers and professors), receiving linguistic assistance from native speakers, conducting quantitative
studies rather than qualitative ones - which required advanced language skills - and negotiating feedback
received from journals (Cho, 2004).
There are a number of strategies that help NESS researchers to deal with the contextual aspects of
publication in English. Lei (2019) investigated practices and experiences of four nursing graduate students in
their journey to observe the publication guidelines and expectations in English. Lei concluded that the
doctoral researchers opted for boundary-crossing to deal with time constraints, by drawing upon research
completed in the MA program and the business setting, in addition to deriving academic publications from
their course assignments. The students also aligned their scholarly and publishing activities with those of
other scholars in the field, including their supervisors, therefore ensuring the relevance of their scholarly
output to current scholarship in the field. The studies mentioned above provide a comprehensive account of
the strategies and practices used by NNES researchers in their pursuit to publish their articles in English.
Finally, it is important to underscore that some scholars take issue with the NNES’s linguistic
disadvantage, especially in advanced stages of writing. According to Hyland (2016), academic publishing is
challenging both to NES and NNES as they are required to learn and use novel literacy skills and craft
manuscripts addressed to specialists in their fields. Therefore, issues pertinent to rhetorical style, persistence,
and authorship take precedence over grammatical accuracy issues, which might even become irrelevant.
Evidence also shows that NNES’s publication output has been in steady increase in a number of disciplines
Hyland (2016). Nonetheless, this does not eradicate NES’s privilege, nor does it extirpate linguistic injustice
and discrimination in society as a whole (Flowerdew, 2019; Kubota, 2020; Politzer-Ahles et al., 2016).
5. English in Moroccan higher education
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English is taught in Morocco as a second foreign language, with French being the first. In higher education,
English was utilized as a medium of instruction in teaching all or a part of the courses for the first time at Al
Akhawayn University in 1995. In addition, English departments, where students are enrolled to obtain a
degree in English studies, are present in all universities of arts and social sciences across the country. English
teaching in Morocco has been propelled by the efforts of different agents, namely the Ministry of Education,
the Moroccan Association of English Teachers (MATE), the British Council, the Regional English Language
Office (RELO), the American Language Centers, AMIDEAST, and many private Moroccan English
language schools (Errihani, 2017).
With the status of English as a language of international communication and publication, calls for
promoting the status of English within the Moroccan educational system as opposed to French, the main
language of business, science, and technology, are growing (Errihani, 2017). Morocco, like many polities,
has recognized the importance of English in achieving internationalization goals, including its role in
advancing scientific research and disseminating it internationally. Since 2014, the mastery of English was
made mandatory for recruiting new professors in universities, more importantly in the fields of sciences,
technology, medicine, and economics. With regards to doctoral studies, a number of departments have
mandated publishing in a Scopus or Web of Science indexed journal in partial fulfilment of the doctoral
graduation requirements. Even when publishing locally, students are required to provide an English
translation of the abstract alongside the original abstract, which is usually in Arabic or French, as these
journals attempt to attract an international readership.
The pressure to publish prior to defending one’s thesis, coupled with the lack of satisfactory English
writing skills, incites some students to resort to predatory journals. According to Xia et al. (2014), authors
who target predatory journals are primarily novice writers from developing countries. A number of these
researchers are faced with high pressure, inadequate research skills, and fear prejudice from Western journals,
and consequently choose to publish in these journals, ensuring a fast-turnaround release of their manuscripts
(Kurt, 2018). Several of these researchers come from Algeria and Morocco, and have published a significant
amount of their research in these journals (Nejadghanbar, Hu, & Babadi, 2023). In fact, these authors
considered these journals reputable and reported that publishing in them has had a positive impact on their
careers.
Several studies have been conducted in different contexts to explore the challenges ofpublishing one’s
research as well as the practices and strategies adopted by NNES to meetthe required international standards
of journal article publishing. However, no study had been carried out within the North African context exploring
the challenges and practices adopted by doctoral researchers, who are pressured to enter the global scientific
community. This study is an attempt to fill out this gap by examining the experiences, chiefly challenges
and practices, of Moroccandoctoral students in their attempts to get published in English.
6. Method
6.1. Context and participants

Thirty Moroccan doctoral students enrolled in four colleges of sciences and engineering in Morocco
participated in this study. They included males (N=16) and females (N=14). All of them had been enrolled
as doctoral students at least for one year at the time of the study. This condition was set in order to select
participants who had already been engaged in the process of crafting a paper for publication since new
entrants do not typically write a paper in their initial year of enrolment. The participants were recruited
through convenience sampling with the assistance of our contacts at the Colleges of sciences and engineering.
6.2. Instruments

Data were obtained using a questionnaire addressed to the 30 students. Subsequently, 12 of these students (6
students per group) participated in two focus group interviews in order to uncover participants’ challenges
and practices with respect to the process of publishing in English. The questionnaire included closed and
open-ended items written in English, as well as in Arabic to maximize comprehensibility for participants
with low English proficiency. Tables 1 and 2 present information about the participants’ years at the doctoral
level and their stages in publishing their research in English upon the time of conducting this research study.

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 Table 1. Participants’ Number of Enrolment Years

Years Number Percentage

2 13 43%
3 5 17%
4 5 17%
5 3 10%
6 4 13%
Total 30 100%

Table 2 Participants’ Stages in Writing a Journal Article in English(EMJ=English-Medium Journals)

Stages Frequency Percentage

1. I am currently drafting my first article in English 16 53%

2. I have submitted an article to an EMJ and it is under review 5 17%
3. I have already published one article in an EMJ 3 10%
4. I have already published two or more articles in an EMJ 6 20%

Total 30 100%

To validate the questionnaire, we sought the assistance of two colleagues, versed in quantitative research
methods and survey design. After receiving their feedback, we removed two overlapping items and revised
three items to enhance clarity. We also conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to obtain theoretical and
conceptual validation and utilized the Cronbach alpha method to determine reliability. Confirmatory factor
analysis allowed us to find out the extent to which our understanding of the constructs was in agreement with
the measures adopted to test the construct, while the Cronbach alpha method enabled us to test whether the
items in the questionnaire were internally consistent, that is whether all the items contributed to a reliable
measurement of the construct. The items that did not meet the benchmarks were expunged from the
questionnaire; as a result, the number of items was lowered from 16 to 12.
7. Results

The results are organized into five sections. In the first section, we examine participants’ perceived
proficiency in reading and writing. In the second, we consider participants’ perceptions about their ability to
publish in English compared to native speakers. In the third section, we explore the adequacy of English
language courses and publishing training provided to participants. After that, we explore the challenges in
publishing in English encountered by students and the strategies followed in order to overcome the obstacles.
Finally, we present participants’ suggestions to help overcome the challenges encountered when writing in
English.
7.1. Participants’ perceived proficiency in reading and writing in English
To elicit participants’ reading and writing proficiency in English, two fundamental skills in the process of
publication in English, participants were solicited to state their perceived proficiency in reading and writing
in English based on a 4-point Likert Scale. As is shown in Table 3, around half the participants reported
having a satisfactory level of reading, while less than 10% rated their proficiency as very good. Concerning
writing, half the participants indicated low proficiency, while no respondent reported having a very good
level. These findings show that students lacked the required writing skills to publish in international journals.
The majority of international journals, especially the highest ranking or most prestigious ones, expect
manuscripts to be written in impeccable English. Several of them recommend that manuscripts written by
non-native researchers be meticulously edited by an expert writer, while other publishers offer English
language and scientific editing services for a fee (https://www.tandfeditingservices.com/services/). An
unsatisfactory level of proficiency can thus constitute grounds for early rejection even before reaching the
reviewing stages by peers.

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 Table 3. Doctoral Students’ Perceived Proficiency Level in Writing and Reading

Reading skills Writing skills

Level Frequency Percentage Frequency Percentage
Low 6 20% 15 50%
Satisfactory 16 53% 11 37%
Good 6 20% 4 13%
Very good 2 7% 0 0%
Total 30 100% 30 100%

Participants’ perceptions about their ability to publish in English compared to native speakers. To elicit
participants’ perceptions about their ability to publish in English compared to native speakers, students were
asked to express agreement or disagreement with the following statement: “I feel linguistically disadvantaged
compared to English native speakers with respect to pubishing in my field”. The participants expressed their
perceptions based on a 5-point Likert scale. In analyzing the results, strongly agree and agree were combined
to capture agreement, and contrasted with disagree and strongly disagree combined to represent disagreement.
This yielded three levels of perceptions: agree, neutral, and disèagree (see Table 4).

Table 4. Feeling Linguistically Disadvantaged

Frequency Percentage
Agree 14 46,5%
Disagree 5 17%
Neutral 11 36,5%
Total 30 100%

Overall, the majority of the participants expressed being linguistically disadvantaged, whereas only 17% disagreed
with the statement. During the focus group interviews, several factors were provided in support of these views. Some
participants mentioned that the reason behind their feeling of being disadvantaged was attributed to the fact that
English is not given due importance in the Moroccan curriculum compared to French. As a result, it is not easy for
Moroccan researchers to master the required writing skills to publish in English-Medium Journals (EMJ) within only
a few years of being introduced to scholarly publishing. Writing a manuscript in English is thus a demanding
undertaking that takesyears to master. A representative sample of participants’ views follows:

I do have the feeling of being disadvantaged in writing in English simply because it is not our mother tongue.
Native speakers have the writing techniques, while we struggle to put our ideas into words and sentences.

Writing in general is no easy task even in our language. When it comes to English, writing becomes even more
demanding. Since English is the international language of academic research, English natives are lucky.

For us, we have to spend months on something native speakers can do in just two or three weeks.

Table X below shows participants’ feelings of being linguistically disadvantaged according to their gender. As is
demonstrated, 64.3% of female participants expressed their feeling of being disadvantaged, compared to 31.3% of
males. Whereas 25.0% of males disagreed that they felt linguistically disadvantaged, only 7.1% of females expressed
their disagreement with the statement.

Table 5. Participants feeling linguistically disadvantaged according to gender

I feel linguistically disadvantaged in

publishing in English than Native speakers in
my field Total

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 Agree Neutral Disagree
Gender Female Count 9 4 1 14
% within Gender 64.3% 28.6% 7.1% 100.0%
Male Count 5 7 4 16
% within Gender 31.3% 43.8% 25.0% 100.0%
Total Count 14 11 5 30
% within Gender 46.7% 36.7% 16.7% 100.0%

The results above (Table 5) called for further analysis to test whether there is any association between participants’
feelings of being linguistically disadvantaged and their gender. The Pearson Chi-square test was performed and
yielded a statistically insignificant association between the two variables under analysis, as confirmed by the result of
χ2 (2, N= 30) = 3.644, p =.163. consequently, these findings suggest a failure to reject the null hypothesis (H0) that
there are no significant associations between participants’ gender and their feelings of being linguistically
disadvantaged. It is important to note here that two cells expected counts below 5, potentially affecting the p-value.

Table 6. Chi-Square Tests

Asymptotic
Value df Significance (2-sided) Exact Sig. (2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square 3.644a 2 .162 .163
Likelihood Ratio 3.782 2 .151 .163
Fisher's Exact Test 3.430 .209
N of Valid Cases 30
a. 2 cells (33.3%) expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 2.33.

7.2. Training in Academic Writing and Publishing

In this section, the students were asked if they had benefited from any form of training in academic writing or scholarly
publishing, either at their university or at another institution, that would prove beneficial in their scholarly publication
endeavors. As is shown in Table 7, very few students (13%) indicated having taken some courses at their university
to improve their academic writing since being enrolled in the doctoral program, while the vast majority stated that
they had never had any course or training in this regard. The lack of academic publishing courses and workshops
offered by the university prompted a number of students to seek training elsewhere. However, when asked whether
they had taken academic writing courses outside the university, the majority of the researchers answered in the
negative.

Table 7. Doctoral Students’ Training in Academic Writing and Scholarly Publishing

Yes No
I have taken some courses to improve my academic writing at the 4 26
university since I first enrolled in the doctoral program. (13%) (87%)

12 18
I have taken some courses to improve my academic writing outside the
(40%) (60%)
university since I first enrolled in the doctoral program.

The absence of institutional training in academic writing and scholarly publishing, therefore, entails the deployment
of additional efforts on students’ parts to improve their writing skills in English. A fifth-year doctoral student in
chemistry argued:

What do you think I should do when I am required to publish in English and our university does not
provide any training? Simply, I have to find the solution myself and look for where to learn some

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 academic writing. I and three of my friends hireda tutor for two months, even if that was not enough,
at least to learn some basics.

The same doctoral student continued voicing his concern about the lack of any form of training in writing in English:

Normally, since the university asks us to publish in English, it is our right as well to be taught how
to do this, especially that we did not study chemistry in English inprevious years. Most of the training,
which was rare in fact, was in French.

Another doctoral student also in chemistry maintained that even when training is provided, it does not address students’
pressing issues:

From time to time, conferences and workshops are held by our institution on how to structure our papers or
how to deal with bibliography and references. However, our mainproblem is that we lack the language skills
to help us write these papers.

As illustrated by these data, students’ lack of adequate university training in academic writing and scholarly publishing
was a strong impediment to their endeavors to publish in EMJs. The students were expected to be independent and
they had no other option than to pay for Academic English classes or hire tutors to introduce them to academic writing
in English.
7.3. Challenges in publishing one’s research in English
7.3.1. Reading for writing
Reading is an essential skill in the process of publishing in English because, as a receptive skill, it enables writers to
become familiar with the register and genre specific to their academic discipline. Moreover, writing a journal article
requires intensive reviewing and understanding of a number of works relevant to the research topic, in order to be
informed about contemporary issues in the field, and be able to paraphrase or cite them correctly, while avoiding the
temptation to plagiarize.
To tap into students’ reading ability, the participants were asked the following question: “What difficulties, if any,
did you face while reading a journal article in English?”. The participants identified two main challenges: Difficulty
to grasp the meaning of certain technical or academic terms and inability to follow the line of reasoning. A sample of
statements capturing participants’ thoughts are presented here :

I faced difficulty in understanding the exact meaning of some expressions or sentences Sometimes I find
difficulties to understand some words
I can’t understand some technical termsIt is
about academic writing
challenge in following and understanding the reasoning of the writer To
understand the exact meaning of the authors’ argument

As conveyed by the statements above, difficulties in understanding written materials are made manifest in
researchers’ inability to grasp the jargon and line of reasoning prevalent in their discourse community. These
challenges become paramount especially when the article is authored by a native speaker of English as one participant
explained. In fact, as shown by contrastive rhetoric studies, different languages adopt different rhetorical and reasoning
patterns, which can result in reading and writing difficulty in a second language (Kaplan, 1966; Leki, 1991).

7.3.2. The Writing process

With regard to the writing process, the participants reported facing a number of challenges related to the use of
appropriate vocabulary, sentence structure, coherence, and presentation of their findings:

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 My main problem with lack of vocabulary to express my ideas
One obstacle to writing is the difficulty of structuring sentences correctly Using the
appropriate transitional expressions and words is sometimes difficult

It is very challenging for me to discuss results and define certain concepts. Also, I am usuallyunable to write (a)
fluent text and interpret the results properly.

Sometimes, I really feel helpless because I have many ideas to express but couldn’t express them in
writing. I try my best to do so, still I feel that my ideas are not conveyedbecause I don’t have enough
vocabulary, expressions and sometimes can’t write with clarity.

The interpretation of scientific results, which form the core of the study, might lose their exact meaning when
expressed in writing (in English). Actually, the interpretation of figuresis the most challenging task for me.

7.4. Publishing Strategies

In this section, students were asked to indicate the strategies they had pursued while attempting to publish their
research in English. As is shown in Figure 1, more than half the participants (56.67%) stated that they would write the
first draft in French and then produce an English translation of the text using an online translation tool or website,while
approximately a third (30.00%) reported receiving assistance from a fluent English speaker. A very low minority
(13.33%) reported that they would write directly in English without any help from another person. Interestingly,
although Arabic is an official language, it was not used by any of the participants during this process.

17
56.67%
18
16
14 9
12
30.00%
10
8 4
6 13.33%
4
2
0
I write with the assistance I write first in French, then I write in English without
of someone fluent in translate the text into the assistance of anyone
English English.

Fig 1. Scholarly publication practices

The participants named several editing and translation websites to which they resorted in preparing their manuscripts.
These included “Reverso Context”, “Deepl”, “Google Translate”, “Grammarly” and “Linguee”. One student’s
justification for using Reverso context is as follows:

I use “Reverso context” because I can find how some sentences are used by other writersin my field.

Table 8 below shows the distribution of writing practices among the participants according to their gender.
According to the data, both male (56.3%) and female (57.1%) participants overwhelmingly reported writing first in
French, and then translating into English. As the second reported practice, writing with the assistance of someone
fluent in English was reported to be adopted by 28.6% of females and 31.3% of males.

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 Table 8. Writing in English practices according to participants’ gender
I write first in
I write with the French, then I write in
assistance of translate the English without
someone fluent text into the assistance
in English English. of anyone Total
Gender Female Count 4 8 2 14
% 28.6% 57.1% 14.3% 100.0%
Male Count 5 9 2 16
% 31.3% 56.3% 12.5% 100.0%
Total Count 9 17 4 30
% 30.0% 56.7% 13.3% 100.0%

To further explore any statistically significant difference between the male and female participants concerning
writing practices, the chi-square test is performed. The test suggested that there are no statistically significant
variations in this regard, as it yielded a result of χ2 (2, N= 30) = .227, p =1.00. Therefore, we failed to reject the null
hypothesis (H0) that there are no significant variations between the male and female participants.

Table 9. Chi-Square Tests

Asymptotic
Significance (2- Exact Sig. (2-
Value df sided) sided)
Pearson Chi-Square .037a 2 .982 1.000
Likelihood Ratio .037 2 .982 1.000
Fisher's Exact Test .227 1.000
N of Valid Cases 30
a. 4 cells (66.7%) expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 1.87.

Table 10 below illustrates the distribution of scholarly publication practices according to participants’ years in the
doctoral program. As is shown, writing first in French, and then translating the text into English was the prevalent
practice across the different years of students in the doctoral program (38%, 100%, 60%, and 100% for second, third,
fourth, and fifth-year students, respectively), whereas writing with the assistance of someone fluent in English
represents the most adopted practice by sixth-year students (75%).

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 Table 10. Distribution of participants’ practices according to the year in the doctoral program

I write with the I write first in I write in English

assistance of French, then without the
Total
someone fluent in translate the text assistance of
English. into English. anyone.
Participants’ number of enrolment years

N 4 5 4 13
2
% 31% 38% 31% 100%
N 0 5 0 5
3
% 0% 100% 0% 100%
N 2 3 0 5
4
% 40% 60% 0% 100%
N 0 3 0 3
5
% 0% 100% 0% 100%
N 3 1 0 4
6
% 75% 25% 0% 100%
N 9 17 4 30
Total
% 30% 57% 13% 100%

To ascertain whether there are any statistically significant variations in participants’ practices across the years spent
in the doctoral program, the Chi-square test is conducted. The test suggested failure to reject the null hypothesis (H0)
that there are no significant associations between the two variables under analysis (χ2 (8, N= 30) = .14.629, p = .059).
However, it is important to note that some expected cell counts were below 5, potentially affecting the p-value.

Table 11 Chi-Square Tests

Asymptotic
Value df Significance (2-sided) Exact Sig. (2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square 14.629a 8 .067 .059
Likelihood Ratio 17.460 8 .026 .045
Fisher's Exact Test 10.861 .111
N of Valid Cases 30
a. 14 cells (93.3%) expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is .40.
b. The standardized statistic is -1.997.

7.5. Doctoral students’ suggestions to help overcome the challenges in writing in English

In this section, the participants were asked to provide suggestions that could help alleviate their struggles with the
publication process and improve their academic writing skills. Several suggestions were stated, such as providing
linguistic training in English, mainly in academic writing, as well as fully-fledged courses to help them develop their
English writing skills, as personal efforts to improve the needed writing skills were in their views insufficient to meet
the required international standards of reputable journals in their field. Some of the suggestions as stated by the
participants are as follows:

We need training in written and spoken English as well as in writing articles in English,

The higher education system should include a basic subject for the study of English from thefirst semester at the
university so that students’ linguistic performance develops year after year. Surely, when the student reaches
the doctorate level, she will find herself qualified to write and read any thesis, and her level in conversational

5
 English will be very good. I hopethat the decision makers will take my proposal into account so that we will no
longer need to write in French first, since we will have already improved our skills in writing and reading in
English. Also, in conferences abroad we will be able to use English to present our research findings.

8. Discussion and conclusion

This study sought to explore the challenges confronted by Moroccan doctoral researchers in publishing their research
in English in addition to the practices they adopted to gain a foothold in their discourse communities. The results
showed a variety of challenges that are in line with previous studies (Ferguson, Pérez‐Llantada, & Plo, 2017; Ferguson
et al., 2011; Flowerdew, 2001, 2010; Huang, 2010; Hyland, 2016; Phothongsunan, 2016). These include students’
lack of adequate proficiency in English, their weak sense of self-efficacy as they are non-natives, and a scarcity of
adequate training and resources, all of which render the publication process an arduous and undesirable task. In
addition, the discursive aspects of English (vocabulary, structuring sentences, and use of transitional expressions) were
a major hurdle to overcome as their mastery is crucial in reviewing the literature and drafting the manuscript to meet
the journals’ publication guidelines.
In the face of publishing obstacles encountered by the participants in this study, they turn themselves into active
agents in order to cope with the publish-or-perish reality. Agency is made manifest in a variety of forms, such as
writing the text in French and translating it into English, instead of composing from the start in English, seeking the
help of another person who is more fluent in English, and taking English courses. In this particular study, the linguistic
challenges seem to be greater given the situation in Morocco in which English operates as a second foreign language,
and the fact that doctoral researchers in sciences and engineering receive their education through the French medium.
Inadequate mastery of English can be a strong impediment to scientific publication in view of the fact that English
uses that do not conform to journal standards are rejected categorically (McKinley & Rose, 2018), casting these novice
academics as incapable of attaining native norms (Heng Hartse & Kubota, 2014; Soler, 2021).
To conclude, since scholarly publication in English has become compulsory for researchers to graduate in
several universities in North Africa, adequate linguistic training through designing structured courses in academic
writing and scholarly publishing should be provided by universities. Writing and English language centres could
provide such training. It is unjust to expect academics from the periphery to publish in top-tier journals when they are
still in their embryonic stages, and have not yet acquired mastery of adequate English language skills and discipline-
specific writing patterns. In addition, supervisors should act as mentors and provide students with peer support,
allowing them to build confidence and to expand their scholarly network, which is an essential component of scholarly
publication success and writing productivity (Kempenaar & Murray, 2019; Nygaard, 2017; Wilson & Cutri, 2021).
Finally, as gatekeepers, editors should be more indulgent with NNE authors’ “non-standard” uses, and avoid rejecting
a manuscript primarily due to linguistic issues. “Active transformative participation of novice scholars in academic
knowledge production requires that their contributions, albeit deviant and norm-breaking, be valued, recognized,
critiqued, and enriched” (Habibie, 2022, p. 62). In sum, providing adequate support will likely enable doctoral NNE
researchers from North Africa to become more confident in their writing skills and gradually overcome the challenges
faced in EFL contexts, therefore paving the ground for a smoother and long-lasting membership in their discourse
communities, as well as a democratization of the academic publishing arena.

6
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