Writing for scholarly publication is considered an important activity for young scholars. However, it is a challenging task for many young scholars, who are usually novice writers in academia. Previous studies have mainly examined challenges encountered by Non-native English Speaking (NNES) novice scholars when publishing research internationally. However, there is scant research on what drives young scholars to publish. Given the importance of scholarly publishing for young academics, it is essential to understand the motivations behind their decisions to publish to encourage them to publish, as well as to provide them with appropriate support. Employing the Motivation Theory, this qualitative-oriented research aims to investigate what motivates 13 young Vietnamese scholars to publish their research papers in English-medium refereed journals. Data were mainly collected from in-depth interviews and thematic analysis was adopted for data analysis. The results show that the major drives for these authors to publish are extrinsic motivators such as passing the thesis examination or preparing for a future career. The study provides practical recommendations for academic support for novice scholars on their way to successful publication.