Yes. Google Translate for a literature search has limitations, but makes a good starting point.

Although our research did not incorporate a systematic review, it did include a literature survey. The foreign co-author's references provided a fresh view of relevant literature. This was partly because she was foreign, augmented by the fact that she works in a different discipline.

Google Translate can be used but should be checked by a native speaker and required in publication.

Askari@ it is a good idea if you can organize a club like that to help each other.

I would like to thank you all for sharing your thoughts with me.

@ Farhad Shokraneh

I have 2 questions:

1- What about non-interventional systematic reviews?

2- Are these translators capable of searching for you in non-English scientific search engines?

Thank you for your help Farhad.

I hadn’t thought about this before, but potentially it could be. I guess it all depends on what you might ask of other researchers; that is, to translate or to review. I’m currently conducting a systematic review with no language restrictions and have found that Google’s translate doesn’t work well for Chinese or Japanese; what came out was essentially gibberish. However, I’ve found a couple of PhD students who have helped me by answering a set of questions about the article(s) followed up by some further questions from me which has been a great help. The problem is that the critique of these articles is never going to be of the same quality as it is for the English language articles.

Hi Emran

You may find some volunteers in research gate who would help you to translate some portions of an article, or answer some questions about the study, but they would like to be acknowledged in the review, or even expect to be co-author. If you need to translate a big portion of the manuscript, I suggest you first try google translate. It is also a good idea to ask around if there is any native speaker in the University or Hospital where you work.

Andrea