Academics need to publish research papers in scholarly journals successfully for various purposes. However, practical tips and tricks to help readers successfully publish their research in academic peer-reviewed journals, particularly in English education and teaching-related fields, remain limited. As a response, this study aims to present lessons learned from various journal reviewers on ways to substantially enhance a research paper so that it can be successfully published in a reputable academic journal, particularly in the English education and teaching-related fields. To meet the research objective and address the empirical gap in the literature, a qualitative content analysis was conducted on reviewers’ feedback from nine manuscript submissions (both accepted and declined) to SCOPUS (Q1 and Q2) and SINTA 2-indexed journals. The analysis results showed various lessons learned summarized in a checklist table, providing specific, actionable writing guidelines for each section of a paper, emphasizing clarity, coherence, detail, and argumentation. Main research implications regarding the importance of reviewers’ feedback for substantially enhancing a research paper and the essence of using the text deconstruction strategy in writing a quality, publishable research paper are discussed.
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