The Impact of Lexical Bundles on How Applied Linguistics Articles are Evaluated

This study aims to explore the extent to which evaluating a research article by Iranian university instructors and article reviewers in the discipline of applied linguistics is influenced by the writer's overuse, underuse, or moderate use of lexical bundles. To this end, fifteen Iranian university instructors and article reviewers were asked evaluate three research papers that were identical except for the frequency of the use of lexical bundles. Then they completed a questionnaire designed to elicit their views regarding the use of lexical bundles in research papers. The analysis of the data showed that the use of lexical bundles has a significant effect on Iranian instructors and article reviewers’ evaluation of research articles in the field of applied linguistics. The results imply that instructors of writing courses and students who wish to write and publish research articles should give special attention to lexical bundles.