To be accepted for publication, your paper must address the distinctive core principles that mark Living Educational Theory Research as a unique research paradigm and methodology.

Need help, resources and references? Some brief ideas on how to get your Living Educational Theory Research going are given below. Also have a look through the EJOLTs archive.  Resources and references are available from Jack Whitehead's website, and Living Educational Theory Research: An evolving treasure chest. There are also two Facebook groups you can join for support and information: a Living Educational Theory Research Facebook group and an EJOLTs Facebook group.  Other practitioner research journals provide a source of references that might be useful to creatively and critically engage with to improve your research.

For your paper to be within the scope of EJOLTs you must:

• Identify the values of human flourishing that evolve, emerge and are clarified in the course of your research. Include details of the circumstances and contexts of the practice researched.
• Use descriptions and explanations of your values in action as the explanatory principles that form the basis and structure of your account.
• When making claims to have created new knowledge and understanding, show how your values – as standards of judgment – support and validate these claims by giving them meaning and substance. 

The terms 'values', 'explanatory principles' and 'standards of judgment' have the following meanings within Living Educational Theory Research:

Values are the elements of your principles, standards, or qualities that you identify as significant, worthwhile and desirable for guiding your intentional actions.

Explanatory principles of your living-educational-theory are formed and informed by the your ontological and social values as ethical principles that emerge over time as they are clarified in the course of your research into your professional practice to understand and improve it and generate a valid explanation for your educational influence in the learning of the social formation which is the context of the researched practice, in the learning of those who comprise it and in your own learning to make a values-led difference.

The values also form the standards of judgment used to test your claims to knowledge and your claims to improvements in practice contained in your account, as a professional practitioner, of your Living Educational Theory Research; they are also used to test your claims to have had an educational influence in learning.

A short lexicon is available here. You are strongly advised to read the lexicon and draw on it when creating your account of your Living Educational Theory Research.

You may find it helpful to explore other accounts of Living Educational Theory Research. It is free to access all the EJOLTs archive. This pdf has all the content of EJOLTs issues from 2008 to 2022 with links to papers. You may need to download the document for the links to be live. Otherwise copy and paste them into the address bar.

Details of websites, references etc you may find useful to get on the inside of Living Educational Theory Research is available by following this link. Some brief suggestions are given below.

To be accepted for publication by EJOLTs your paper must include reference to the core principles of Living Educational Theory Research indicated above and the elements outlined in the table below.

Make sure you have a complete and accurate bibliography and reference list. Check that you have only included references that are relevant and not sandbagging, genuflecting or kingmaking (Bassey, 1992). Guidance available here.

Getting you Living Educational Theory Research underway.

Living Educational Theory Research is a form of professional practitioner educational research distinguished by the practitioner researcher's valid, values-laden, explanations for their educational influence in their own learning, the learning of others and the learning of the social formations within which they practice.

A few points to bear in mind that may help your paper to be found by potential readers and to be read:

• Why are you writing your paper and for whom?
• Keep your audience in sharp focus - what is the main point you would like your reader to take away with them?
• Keep in mind you are writing a paper, not a thesis or a book of your life's work, so keep it focussed. The shorter the paper the more likely it is to be read. (Maximum for EJOLTs papers is 6,000 words including references, bibliography, appendices etc)
• Does your title communicate the essence of your paper? A short meaningful yet eye catching title is better than one that goes on and on and... (6 words are much better than 16)
• Choose your key words carefully - they are what help your paper to be found in a search on google etc. Think of who might be looking for your work and what search words they might use.
• Keep in mind that your abstract is what attracts someone to want to read your paper. Your abstract is 230 word absolute maximum - less is often best.
• If you include images and video in your paper make sure they help to communicate something important and are referred to in the text.
• If you include video say what your reader is to get from watching which part of it. Do not expect someone to watch for more than a moment. You can advise them with a reference in the text should you believe that they might find the whole thing of interest and make sure you add the reference to the full video in the reference section.
• Keep your language as straightforward and simple as possible - don't make my mistake and have sentences that go on and on and...

Last, but not least, creating an account and testing its rigor and validity is an important part of Living Educational Theory Research. It is not a simple, quick process. First, write for yourself to enable you to learn from researching your practice and generating a values-based explanation of your educational influence in your own learning, the learning of others and the learning of social formations you live and work in. These are just a few questions to get you going.

• What is the practice you have been researching?
• What is the context of your practice you have been researching?
• What improvement in the educational, values-laden, influence in the learning of the social formation and those who comprise it have you been working to have?
• Have you been doing what you thought you were doing?
• What is the consequence of your attempts to improve your practice?
• What are the unintended consequences of your efforts?
• What learning has occurred and by whom?
• What evidence do you have to support your claim to have had an educational influence in any learning?
• What values have emerged that form your explanatory principles and evaluative standards in explanations of your educational influence in learning, clarified as you have researched your practice to understand and improve it?
• Do they enable you to explain your educational influence in learning?
• Do they provide evaluative standards by which you can judge improvement in the educational influence in learning you have had?
• What evidence do you have to support your claims?

When you are clear about the educational knowledge you have generated think of your audience and write to communicate what you have learned that might be of use and interest to them. Keep in mind that the point of creating a publishable paper is not just to improve your learning and what you are doing. The point is to also communicate a relatable, valid explanation of your educational influence in your own learning, the learning of others and the learning of the social formation, which is the context of your practice (your living-educational-theory). Publishing also enables you to realise your responsibility to contribute to a global knowledgebase with explanations of educational influence in learning distinguished by values that carry hope for the flourishing of Humanity.

Can't find what you need to help you progress your EJOLTs paper? Contact the EJOLTs editor ([email protected]) and we will do what we can to help.

It is never pleasant to have a paper 'rejected' so authors are strongly advised to first check that their paper is suitable for EJOLTs.