This page provides general guidance on organizing a journal article and presenting and explaining data. See IJAL’s Instructions to authors for more specific information on how to prepare your manuscript for submission and for typesetting.
A journal article is an argument constructed around a substantive, falsifiable thesis. It must carefully lay out that thesis and present supporting evidence in a logical progression of arguments, usually organized into numbered subsections.
1. The introduction
The introduction to a paper should orient the reader and give a clear picture of the context for the research, the central claim being made, and the arguments supporting the claim. Typically, an introduction has three components: a lead-in, a thesis statement, and summary of the argumentation and the contents of the paper.
The lead-in to the paper should contextualize the research, telling the reader what the general topic area of the paper is and setting up the general problem under discussion. IJAL authors often start with an illustrative example to give the reader a sense of the issue under discussion.
The thesis statement is a clear, concise statement of the analytical or descriptive point that the paper sets out to prove. A thesis statement must be something that can be proved or disproved by the argumentation in the paper.
Once the thesis statement is made clear, the key arguments in support of that thesis should be stated concisely. The reader should be able to assess the type of evidence and argumentation being brought to bear on the thesis.
Many writers end the introductory section with a paragraph laying out the major sections of the paper to follow. The goal here is to give the reader guidance.
2. The body
The body of the paper is where the author sets out the arguments for the thesis in detail. The body is divided into subsections, organizing the information in the most useful way possible. A common error writers make is choosing an order that forces them to present data or arguments that presuppose something that doesn’t come until later in the paper. It is important to remember that a typical reader has little or no pre-existing knowledge of the subject matter or the language. Organizing a paper in a way that doesn’t recognize this, and which fails to present necessary background for the discussion or which doesn’t build from simplest to most complex argumentation is a recipe for failure.
2.1. Background on the language
Papers in IJAL almost invariably deal with data taken from individual languages that most readers will be unfamiliar with. Understanding these data requires a certain certain general background knowledge of the languages’s structure and typological profile, as well as a specific knowledge of the type of structure being discussed in the paper. The traditional place to present these preliminary facts is in the first section of the body of the paper. Note that IJAL, in addition to being a forum for linguistic research, is also a repository for facts about underdescribed languages, so this background section can include more detail about the general grammar of the language than is strictly necessary for the specific purposes of the paper (within reason, of course, and respecting the severe constraints on space that come with paper publication).
If a paper concerns historical or language-contact issues, relevant information on the family and languages involved should be introduced.
An article must orient the reader to the theoretical or analytical framework, to key technical concepts that the author will rely on, definitions of key terms, and how the current paper fits into the larger body of linguistic literature. It is somewhat of an art to decide whether particular technical terms and concepts should be introduced in an early section of an article or only where they come up in the paper; but in general an effective article will prepare the reader early-on to the major theoretical or typological issues that will be addressed or employed in the paper. This type of theoretical and analytical background is essential for the study to be replicable.
For a simple example, if the thesis of a paper is that Yagua has four different verb types relative to semantic roles of core arguments — agent–patient, experiencier-theme, theme-only, agent-only — but only transitive and intransitive clause constructions, then the author should briefly introduce the general theoretical framework they adopt for semantic roles, argument structure and transitivity; and give clear definitions of all key terms such as those set in bold here, along with (empirical) criteria for how instances of each category are identified in the data.
The background section should also concisely describe methodological issues. This will vary depending on the nature of the study but may include how data were gathered in the field, experimental protocols and statistical tests used, sources and interpretation of legacy data, etc.
2.2 The data, argumentation, and analysis
How the remainder of the body is structured will vary depending on the nature of the article, but often data is presented and explained to the reader in a step-by-step fashion. Extensive or expanded data sets may sometimes be included in one or more appendices. After presenting relevant data, arguments are developed regarding how the data bear on the thesis. This may be followed by discussion of the findings and detailed analytical, theoretical, or typological discussion. The flow of ideas must clearly keep the reader’s mind in view, and not presuppose that the reader can infer what to see in unexplained examples, grasp concepts that have have not yet been explained, or make logical connections that are not made explicit.
Linguists make heavy use of titled sections and subsections with outline-style numbering. The introductory section of an article can be numbered as section 1, or numbering can begin with the body of the paper. Common errors include overuse of section numbers (e.g., for what is just a paragraph), leaving a superordinate section empty of text, and creating a single subsection of a given level under a heading. All of these lead to unnecessary structure in a paper.
Good academic writing isn’t mechanical and formulaic, and equally good papers may be developed in somewhat different ways. However, all data, paragraphs, and sections included in a paper must be clearly related to the primary goal of supporting an original thesis that represents a genuine contribution to knowledge.
Linguists deal with a large amount of complex data. When presenting data in examples or tables, it usually helps to walk the reader through the data: make a statement, then give a supporting example, then make a second statement and give a second example. What some authors do instead is make five different statements followed by a block of five examples with no obvious connection between the examples and the statements. Following are examples of the “right” and “wrong” way to support a statement.
Right (easy to follow)
Upper Necaxa Totonac displays some apparent irregularities in the expression of subject and object agreement when the subject is first or second person and the object is second or first person, and one or both is plural. These forms are three-way ambiguous, as seen in (1), which shows a verb expressing action of the first person on the second:
| (1) | ḭkaːtṵ́ksnḭ |
| ḭk–kaː–tṵks–nḭ | |
| 1SG.SUB–PL.OBJ–hit–2OBJ:PFV | |
| ‘I hit you guys’ or ‘we hit you guys’ or ‘we hit you’ |
The form in (1) consists of the first-person subject prefix ḭk-, the plural object marker kaː-, and the second-person object suffix -n. This is the form expected for the 1sg > 2pl reading, but it is also used in situations where 1pl > 2pl and 1pl > 2sg.
Wrong (hard to follow)
Upper Necaxa Totonac displays some apparent irregularities in the expression of subject and object agreement in cases where the subject is first or second person and the object is second or first person, and one or both is plural, as seen in (2). These forms are three-way ambiguous; the 1 > 2 form in (2a), for instance, which consists of the first-person subject prefix ḭk-, the plural object marker kaː-, and the second-person object suffix -n, has not only the expected 1sg > 2pl reading, it is also used in situations where 1pl > 2pl and 1pl > 2sg. Likewise, the form in (2b) has three readings, 2sg > 1pl, 2pl > 1pl, 2pl > 1sg, although in this case it consists of a non-compositional configuration of affixes, the first-person object prefix kin-, the first-person plural subject suffix -w, and the reciprocal prefix laː-.
| (2) | a. | ḭkaːtṵ́ksnḭ |
| ḭk–kaː–tṵks–nḭ | ||
| 1SG.SUB–PL.OBJ–hit–2OBJ:PFV | ||
| ‘I hit you guys’ or ‘we hit you guys’ or ‘we hit you’ |
| b. | kilaːtṵ́kswḭ | |
| kin–laː–tṵks–wḭ | ||
| INST–RCP–hit–1PL.SUB:PFV | ||
| ‘you hit us’ or ‘you guys hit us’ or ‘you guys hit me’ |
2.3 Conclusion
The conclusion should summarize the paper, restate the thesis, refer back to key points, summarize findings. Readers should be able to jump to the conclusion before reading the paper as a whole and get a good sense of what the paper is about and what the original contribution of the paper to the field is.
Over and above summarizing the findings, the conclusion can also discuss the implications of these findings. Authors may chose to expand upon some key ideas or theoretical implications of the paper, or may outline specific proposals or projects for furthering this line of research. Weak, general comments about the need for “future investigation” or vague references to “remaining problems” without prospects for their solution are a poor way to finish.
Guidelines for interlinear examples are listed here.