This is the eighth issue since Ibérica, the journal of the European Association of Languages for Specific Purposes, appeared in public to complement the activities carried out by the association. The diversity of issues treated since our journal's initial steps shows how languages for specific purposes, its main target, have evolved and have seen the participation of professionals dedicated to different specialities and working in different fields, particularly in the area of applied languages and linguistics. Since the early numbers of the journal, which was first published annually and edited by Margaret McGinity, we have had the good fortune to include papers by some of the best known specialists in their field together with papers by other professionals, mainly from Spanish universities. Among these specialists, Françoise Salager-Meyer wrote on polemicity in academic medical writing from a diachronic viewpoint in issue number 1 (1999), while Tony Dudley-Evans, in number 2 (2000), presented genre as a key to the study of ESP. The recent interest over peer reviews was approached by Hugh Gosden in issue number 3 (2001), in which he looked at authors' responses to referees' comments and gave clues for teaching with special emphasis on how important it is for young scientists to publish early and to use those comments for their improvement in writing. In issue number 4 (2002), Vijay Bhatia discussed a multi-faceted perspective of genre. In his paper, he examined the question: 'Is generic description a reflection of reality, or a convenient fiction invented by applied linguists?' Since I took over as editor, the journal has become a biannual publication. In issue number 5 (Spring, 2003), Tom Huckin explored what is specific about ESP, delving into the question of subject specificity and continuing the debate over the wide-angled vs. the narrow-angled approaches. Greg Myers, in issue number 6 (Fall, 2003), looked at academic discourse from the perspective of words, pictures, and facts. Issue number 7 (Spring, 2004) made a provisional change in the journal. In monographic fashion, we published the papers presented at a colloquium organized by our association on cognitive linguistics, which was held at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Spain) in September 2002. As a result of the success of this initiative, another monographic issue, Language and Internet, has been scheduled for the Spring, 2005.1 In the present issue (Fall, 2004) a paper is presented by John M. Swales, whose long- standing efforts to introduce us into the world of genre has spawned a sizeable group IBÉRICA 8 [2004]: 3-4 Editorial 3 of researchers. In his essay, John Swales takes us over thirty years back as he focuses on the significance of Huddleston's adventure into corpus linguistics at a time when, as Swales recalls, it was only a job reserved for the selected few who had the patience to manually compile texts. Ibérica is indeed honored to be a channel for his teachings. We also include a paper on abstract retrieval by professors Chan and Foo in Singapore. This should serve as an invitation to the readership from abroad to follow in their footsteps and submit contributions for publication in our journal. Additionally, Pilar Safont brings to the fore her experience in the classroom and presents a new look at learners' production of request forms, and Pilar Alberola brings together English and Spanish bank brochures in order to show their main constitutive elements and to consider whether or not they constitute a new genre. Also, Cristina Lahuerta, an experienced university teacher of English, presents empirical research on discourse markers used by Spanish undergraduates in their expository compositions, and Irina Argüelles, in response to the need of students to handle summarizing skills, introduces what she calls the 'Babar' guide as an assessment tool for students' summaries of expository texts. This in turn is followed by the results of Anna Fagan and Pedro Martín's investigation into the use of critical speech acts in fifty research papers from psychology and chemistry. In the last part of this issue Carmen Pérez-Llantada interviews John M. Swales who shares with us some of his past experiences and also his present activities. The issues closes with two book reviews: Ana Bocanegra's review of Linguistic studies in academic and professional English, edited by I. Fortanet et al. (2004), which gathers sixteen papers related to the context of professional and academic English, and Juan C. Palmer's review of M. Rosario Bueno's excellent annotated bibliographical repertoire of publications in Spain, Lenguas para Fines Específicos en España a través de sus publicaciones (1985-2002) (2004). This work will indeed serve as a tool for researchers who want to know what has been published in the field of specific languages in the last two decades. Pedro A. Fuertes closes this section with a review of the textbook English for Contract and Company law, 2 nd ed., by Marcella Chartrand, Catherine Millar and Edward Wiltshire. As he rightly points out, although written with law students of English in mind, it also contains texts which may be used by business English students. Jordi Piqué-Angordans Editor of Ibérica EDITORIAL IBÉRICA 8 [2004]: 3-44 Note 1 The first four issues named here are already available in full in the webpage of the association, http://www.uv.es/aelfe.