Reviewing Books

Please contact the Publications Secretary if you wish to review books for the prize. Prospective reviewers should check the requirements given on the Review Form.

Award

BAAL awards a Book Prize at the annual conference in September.

Entry requirements

The British Association for Applied Linguistics offers an annual prize for an outstanding book in the field of Applied Linguistics. Books (monographs, text books, edited volumes, reference books etc) in any field of applied linguistics are eligible for the prize. Eligibility is NOT restricted to books published in the United Kingdom.

 

Entries must be published primarily in English and must bear a copyright notice for the calendar year prior to the year of the Annual General Meeting (AGM) where the prize is to be awarded (e.g. 2006 copyright for the AGM in 2007). Second editions are not eligible.

 

Nominations for the BAAL Book Prize are made by the publishers of the book and must be accompanied by four copies of the nominated volume and an administration fee of £35 for each title submitted. (Each administration fee must be paid in pounds sterling and the cheques should be made payable to British Association for Applied Linguistics.) A short-list is generally drawn up before the end of June each year and the prize is eventually awarded at the AGM in September. Details of forthcoming meetings, and the venues for those meetings, are posted on this website.

Submitting books for the prize

THE CLOSING DATE FOR NOMINATIONS IS DECEMBER 13th OF THE YEAR BEFORE THE AGM.

 

Books to be published in December of that year may be submitted later than this date by prior arrangement with the BAAL Publications Secretary.

 

Copies of books should be sent to: the BAAL Publications Secretary:

Steve Walsh

School of Education

Communication and Language Sciences

Newcastle University

Room 3.6

King George VI Building

Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, NE8 2ES

 

Tel: 0191 222 5094

Email: steve.walsh@ncl.ac.uk

Judging of titles

(1) All entries to the BAAL Book Prize will be considered by a panel of expert reviewers whose teaching and research interests coincide with the titles under consideration. The panel will recommend titles for the shortlist.

 

(2) The short-listed titles will be considered by a second panel of judges who are themselves experienced researchers and authors and well known in the field.

 

(3) Eligibility is not restricted to UK publishers/authors. We welcome nominations from publishers outside the UK who might wish to draw their books to the attention of a British academic audience.

 

(4) The process of selection and judging is designed to bring nominated titles to the attention of staff and students in a wide range of institutions. Even where nominations are not short-listed, publishers can be sure that their new titles will get valuable publicity.

 

(5) The definition of 'applied linguistics' is to be interpreted in a wide sense: many studies in sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, communication studies and education will come within the scope of the BAAL Book Prize. If you are in doubt about the eligibility of a title, then contact the current Publications Secretary.

 

(6) Judges are requested when making their decisions to take account of a range of criteria, including the production quality of the book, and the style of presentation and language. In past years, judges have shown less interest in introductory text books and edited collections, though there is no reason why such volumes should not be successful where they clearly make an innovative and important contribution to the field.

 

(7) Details of the short-listed titles are posted on the BAAL website before the AGM, along with selected extracts from the comments submitted by the reviewers.

 

(8) The publishers of the winning title may use the phrase 'BAAL Book Prize + RELEVANT DATE' or 'Winner of the BAAL Book Prize +DATE' in the publicity for the book. Publishers of short-listed titles may use the phrase 'Short-listed for the BAAL Book Prize + DATE' in their publicity.

 

(9) BAAL may donate some of the submitted books to a book charity when the judging process has been completed.

History of Prizes

BAAL Book Prize