Lecturers' language problems in writing english papers for international publications

Indonesian lecturers are now encouraged to publish papers in international
journals so that they can better disseminate research findings and innovations
globally. However, many of them have the problems with English language
mastery. This study was aimed at identifying and analyzing language
problems of the Indonesian university lecturers in writing English academic
papers for international publications. The subjects of the study were 66
randomly selected lecturers of various disciplines other than English
Education and English Literature. The data were collected by questionnaire
and English writing tasks on phrases, sentences, and paragraphs which were
then analyzed descriptively. The results show that language errors and
mistakes in grammar, syntax, vocabulary, spelling and word forms were all
found in the subjects’ writings. In writing academic papers for international
publications, university lecturers faced language problems as constructing
phrases and sentences, choosing and using appropriate vocabulary and terms
relevant to their topic of study as well as translating their Indonesian
sentences into English.