LESLI Journal

LESLI: Linguistic Evidence in Security Law and Intelligence is an interdisciplinary journal for linguists, computer scientists, psychologists, psychiatrists, attorneys, law enforcement, security executives, and intelligence analysts. As the journal of the Institute for Linguistic Evidence and its membership TALE: The Association for Linguistic Evidence, LESLI provides a forum to present rigorous research, requests for research, and policy discussions of linguistic evidence.

LESLI publishes Research Articles, Policy Discussions, Requests for Research, and Reviews of Software and Books.

1. Research Articles

LESLI utilizes double-blind peer review by two reviewers with expertise in both theoretical and practical aspects of linguistic evidence. Reviewers evaluate research articles for fundamental aspects of science (description of data, strong and ethical data collection practices, analytical techniques grounded in linguistics, replicability of analytical procedure, appropriate quantitative analysis, etc.).

Since LESLI is read by linguists and non-linguists, it is essential that articles define terminology and methods clearly and point readers to references for such information.

Reviewers reject articles based in literary criticism or other non-scientific analyses of language. Articles merely recounting a case will also be rejected by reviewers.

2. Policy Discussions

LESLI utilizes double-blind peer review by two reviewers with expertise in both theoretical and practical aspects of linguistic evidence. Reviewers evaluate policy discussions for fundamental contributions to the field of forensic linguistics that meet normal standards of scholarship and scholarly communication. While it is expected that policy discussions will focus on controversial issues and perhaps take unpopular stances, ad hominem attacks, defamatory implications, and misrepresentation of scholarship will immediately cause a submission to be rejected.

Since LESLI is read by linguists and non-linguists, it is essential that articles define terminology and methods clearly, and point readers to references for the terminology and methods. Especially in policy discussions, the author must make controversial issues very clear.

3. Requests for Research

LESLI utilizes double-blind peer review by two reviewers with expertise in both theoretical and practical aspects of linguistic evidence. Reviewers evaluate requests for research articles for fundamental understanding of the field of forensic linguistics and innovative ideas, as well as the scholarly and scientific concepts within the article.

Since requests are often written by non-linguists, it is essential that the request articles define the goal of the research, justification of the requested research, and applicability of the requested research.

Reviewers reject request articles that are unaware of current literature or methods which address the issue.

4. Reviews of Software and Books

LESLI utilizes double-blind peer review by two reviewers with expertise in both theoretical and practical aspects of linguistic evidence. Reviewers evaluate reviews for normal standards of scholarship and scholarly communication. While it is expected that reviews might include controversial issues, ad hominen attacks, defamatory implications, and misrepresentation of scholarship will immediately cause a submission to be rejected.

Since LESLI is read by linguists and non-linguists, it is essential that articles define terminology and methods clearly and point readers to references for the terminology and methods. Especially in reviews, the author must make controversial issues very clear.