Institutional perspective on writing for international publication

Abstract

The paper focuses on the institutional background of the publishing practices of Polish scholars, with special emphasis on publications in English. The University of Silesia in Katowice represents a Polish Higher Education Institution which places significant emphasis on international publications. On the basis of two data collection instruments, a report on point-winning publications (2017–2020) and a survey conducted among 197 faculty members, the author portrays the publication-related situation of the university and its most important determinants. Besides the facts pertaining to the distribution of point-winning publications among disciplines and languages, the article address such important issues as the authors’ strategies employed in the preparation of English language manuscripts, language-related issues articulated by the reviewers, and reasons for not publishing in English. A connection is made between the institutional context in which scholarly texts are composed and the strategic choices made by the authors in the process of manuscript drafting.