English for

Lead-in
1 Draw learners’ attention to the picture of scales and 
elicit their answers to the gaps. Explain that answers are 
based on the authors’ personal experience and surveys of 
university staff. Your learners may have different opinions, 
which you can discuss with them.
Answers
1 thirty 2 seventy 
Reading
2 You can start by eliciting what kind of information your 
learners are likely to read in authors’ guidelines. Draw 
learners’ attention to the table and ask them to add any 
items they think important. After they have read the texts, 
ask them to compare their predictions with the texts. You 
can also ask them to justify their answers with examples 
from the texts.
Answers
Text 1
Text 2
1 Age of the journal
✓
✓
2 Scope (the range of subjects covered by the journal)
✓
✓
3 Audience
✓
✓
4 Recommendations about the language
✓
5 Time from submission to publication
✓
3 It can be difficult to know how long to give when you set 
a time limit for reading. Some learners are slower readers 
than others. They are not bad readers; they even retain 
information from texts better than fast readers. Set a time 
limit to suit the mid-pace readers. Encourage slow readers 
to speed up a bit.
Suggested answers
Instructions
Network Science
Geological Magazine
1 Types of articles
• Articles from 
different fields
• No book reviews
• No software reviews
• Original papers
• Book reviews 
• Rapid communications
2 Article length
• 20–40 pages
• Original papers: no page limit
• Rapid communications: no more 
than 6 printed pages (5,000 
words)
3 Abstract length
• No more than 200 
words
• Original articles: up to 250 words
• Rapid communications: no more 
than 100 words
4 Manuscript 
preparation
• Recommendations 
to avoid jargon and 
to give explanations 
of concepts and 
methods
• Not mentioned
5 Submission 
procedure
• Not mentioned
• Rapid communications: revisions 
to be made fast
• Book reviews: not submitted 
independently, only by the 
Editor’s invitation
6 Charges
• Not mentioned
• No charge for text pages
• Charge for printing colour images
• Online reproduction of images is 
free
4 You can ask learners if they want to work in pairs or 
small groups to complete the task. This will give them a 
feeling of taking responsibility of their learning and will 
help to motivate them.