I wanted to stay quiet, but I cannot.

There are two groups discussing the problem now. The first group keeps saying that language is not a problem by itself, but that usually science is not good enough. Then comments become even stronger, that people should aim for lower rank journals first (what about American natives and employed in America, they could start high from very beginning?), that professionals non natives cannot become good enough to help with the writing, etc.

The other group try to show a different picture by their own examples (lower rate when changing institution, not considering science at all but rejecting on the basis of language etc.)... Let me put it straight. From all that could be read even in this open thread it is evident, that there are prejudices against non-Americans (English) or non-American (English) laboratories and their results. These prejudices are often phrased as language problems.

From my personal experience (around 80 publications even in highly ranked journals) after starting to work in a new field (the physics education after the theoretical soft matter physics) all my papers submitted to American journals were rejected but later without problems published in European journals and all of them were already cited, so there were not completely rubbish I suppose. Was a language or was anything else? Europe is much softer with this respect, according to my experiences and according to several experiences of my colleagues.

Has anybody seen any statistics? American journals vs American authors and laboratories in comparison with the rest of the world and European journals vs English native speakers and the rest of the world?

Please apologize that I was rather straight.

Yes.

As a referee, I have rejected many papers from non-English speakers because I could not work out what they did. On occasions I went out of my way and helped the authors with editing, but that was going beyond my call of duty.

Remember that your 50% figure is caused by many factors: 1) There are not many journals that accept work in your field. Start-up costs are high, and economies of scale are hard to achieve. 2) Researchers who are not proficient in English have difficulty in accessing publications and reading them and in writing for the journals. 3) The Impact factors are biassed to favour publications in English!

That is true Ian (my work was on specific field-focused journals, the two having the highest impact factors), but I agree that many factors may play a role. I am interested what is going on in other fields. Many thanks ... and your third point about IF bias is very important!

Attila - I believe your observation is fully correct - and well supported by Ian - as usual. I've often had to reject reviewed manuscripts on the basis that I could not understand much of the 'reported' English and/or the authors have tried to 'over-compensate' for English being their second language by being overly technical, 'pedantic' or 'flowery' in their presentation.

If I think of article submissions (or even student assignments) that I score high. I will tend to state that their submissions are 'articulate, well-structured, logical, flowing and (especially for the creative ones) - eloquent'. Many Non-native English article submissions will often not fulfill any of these criteria and are, therefore, at an obvious disadvantage. Whether I think that this is 'culturally correct or not' - I can only offer feedback on the basis that most established, high-ranking academic journals want - 'well constructed, well written articles in English'. Personally, I can only review English-language manuscripts in English-language submission journals; a major limitation of mine I admit - but one shared by many of my notable colleagues.

Thank You Dean! I am also a reviewers for a number of Journals and I must agree. However, when the scientific value is high, and proper methods and stats are used, I suggest a total rewrite with the help of a native speaker - in spite of the fact that after reading the first two paragraphs I would rather reject it. - My concern though, is that (possibly?) a number of non-English scholars may be discouraged from publishing their work in English, so they opt for a national publication instead and their findings remain unknown to other scholars in the field. I also think about the solution. One in my mind would be a structured template that could be used by simply filling in factual information about important studies; One that is more than a short English abstract that some of the national publications provide and could be classed among original papers, brief reports, letter to the Editor, etc. as "Research Outline" or "Research Summary"? I know that this method has its shortcomings especially in building the rationale and providing interpretations (that could be accomplished only in proper research reports), but it may be a means of motivation. It is too bad that many authors do not take advantage of the English editing/writing help that is now made available by many Journals. A solution to the problem would help English scholars too by letting them work with a broader perspective in their field and possibly avoid unnecessary research.

Accepting not only the language barrier but also the biased structure of impact publishing, we nevertheless can exchange knowledge and expertise.

For major world languages other than English there were (or hopefully still are) journals that offer mutually translated publications. From my physics education I remember having read many valuable Russian language papers as translations into English. I expect the same for Japanese and Chinese language articles.

In the medium term there might be a language shift from English to Chinese on the horizon (not actually taking place, I admit); it's just a matter of global power and influence.

Attila - I fully endorse the sentiment of supporting authors where English is not their first language. In a perfect world - that would be great. I also agree that, translated to English, there may well be many 'breakthroughs, revelations and new discoveries' that have and will be lost - published in other languages. However, until English (and well written English in that case) is 'replaced' for another language, I can't see it happening anytime soon.

Michael, while a current popular ideological shift, given the recent US debt-ceiling issue (conveniently near-global critical crisis), might seem to expose a different global cultural, philosophical, fiscal balance-shift - I don't see it happening in academia in the near future.

May be a perspective from a young (non-native English) researcher. I do fully agree that there should be a certain language quality (even though, this is with reference to what those who make the rules consider as good). There needs to be a point of reference. I do not believe that the big 3 are so far ahead (in terms of publications) mainly due to language proficiency. May be scholars from other parts of the world write in a way that is not accessible to researchers from the West. I have seen quite a number of papers that I could not understand because the style was so alien to me. It is just very hard for many to immerse into the way of thinking (and then writing) that is required in most journals. (The same is true in the other direction).

Well, this is probably is a very different conversation, but it might explain something.

You touched a good point Andre! Thinking and language! I learned in English and now I have difficulty expressing myself in my mother tongue (Hungarian), because language shapes thought. Thus even if one is good in English, unless she/he uses it on a daily basis the thought-frames of the habitually used language distort writing. (The big 3 is only in my field.... of course in other fields may be different. In fact this is why I started the question:-))

The big 3 is also as a result of them having the highest GDPs among English speaking countries?

Following a line of thought of someone from a different region is not easy. The English can be good, but the way thought is structured can be different. This begs the question whether the best papers are published (this is very subjective anyway) or the paper we understand.

Yes, the big 3 thing is not only a language issue. The journals are mostly in these countries...

As a non-native English speaker i face the problem. Sometimes reviewers note that my English is "rather odd". Unfortunately i have never received offers from native speakers, and i always try to work on my articles myself.

i don't think that this is a great barreer for scientific exchange, but some basic level of English is must.

Without a doubt! The domain of language is essential to the possibilities of publishing when the researcher resides in a country whose language is not their mother tongue. I believe that the difficulty is not only in the domain of grammatical structures but the strength of the semantic and cultural constructions of language.

Good points! Must agree in part! But, If I do a study and construct a rationale based on "available" studies in international databases and miss only one key finding from a Bulgarian, Hungarian, Iranian Greek, etc, national paper that is not listed in these databases, but that would shape differently my rationale for my study, or the research question / hypothesis, ... doesn't that trim (at least to some extent...) "knowledge"?

Yes, @Attila, it does. And, Beatriz (2 days ago) stated a bit contradictory that it doesn't but that there are limits in exchanging ideas. Many scholars extend their knowledge by talking to each other and negotiating arguments. If they don't understand each other, there is neither an exchange nor negotiation. So, we live in a world with limited extension of knowledge.

What to do with it is not part of the original question. I think we need answers to this part of the question, too.

Attila,

As a Journal Editor, my experience is that there is indeed a language-mastery barrier that does in fact reduce the ability to publish successfully. For the researcher facing this disadvantage, It adversely affects both the quality of journal outlet into which one is likely to publish and the number of refereed publications one is destined to achieve.

But there are a few ways I believe to help overcome this challenge. One is for the researcher with this challenge to reach out to colleagues at universities where, say, English is predominantly spoken and seek co-authors whose area of research interest and expertise is a good match to the work that he/she is doing. Of course, one must be careful to align oneself with someone who is not only capable but of high integrity. Finding such people may not be easy, depending upon how specialized one's work is. One place to start is to develop a network while attending professional conferences and cultivating good prospects. Another is to seek to council of one's advisor. In fact, as a Journal Editor, I have occasionally suggested potential co-authors on papers my referees rejected because a paper was very difficult to read.

Another route is being provided by the market. There are many new electronic journals, some of which have become quite respectable, that review a paper and just it more heavily on it core merits and weigh writing quality less heavily. Once again, the writer must be careful. Poor quality journals should be avoided. Up-and-coming journals may be more valuable. This requires some time and effort to investigate, but can yield a number of journals in nearly every field where one can become published, make a contribution, and at least make professional progress, albeit perhaps not ideal. As an extension of this suggestion, there are in all disciplines several conferences each year which publish Proceedings where one can place one's work, even if the writing is not perfect.

Naturally, I would suggest pursuing all of the above. In time and with experience, one's language challenge can fade away.

I do not think it is the language barrier only. Oftentimes, high impact journals cannot identify with the situations in the settings where the studies were conducted and with the prevailing circumstances in the developing world. Some state clearly that the findings would not interest their readers. Language problems can be easily handled with the input from translators, editors and peer-reviewers.

Sometimes that may be the case Bridget - that is true. That said, authors submitting to international journals from countries which have an 'emerging' research culture need to be mindful of this limitation. In the first instance, they need to 'internationalise' their studies i.e. compare and contrast their findings against studies from other 'more established' countries. Also - they need to clearly articulate their 'ethical' review process. I am always 'immediately' wary of submissions from countries where there appears to be no ethical rigour or scrutiny. I personally am noting, more recently, submissions from countries - such as Iran - that seem to understand that this needs to be the case - and which end up being far more relevent to journal editors than if they do not.

I can not speak English well, so there was several journal rejected my paper because the poor language I have.

thank you

Zulganef - sorry to hear of your experiences - but that is the reality of publishing. If you are not confident in English, I would argue that it is always the best policy to submit your manuscripts to 'native' language journals.

In my view language should not be abrrier for publication, for example, I am not native speaker and I published in Englsih Journals buy asking hlp from Englsih native speakers who have experince in edditing and publishing research papers

some time if you have grants you may send your maniuscript to professional editors

Saleh - you have, however, contradicted your response. There are many 'errors' in your response - that, if it were an article that I was reviewing, I might have rejected it on that alone. Your advice to use professional editors may well be a useful one - but the authors would have to have a 'proficient' level of English so that the editors would know what was being conveyed.- especially if the study was a technical one. Also - such services are expensive and add another level of complexity to the equation.

I am agree with you Dean, but in my country, a lecturer like me should published his/her article in an impact journal, especially scoups's indexed journals. To Saleh: the translators usually not in the same field of knowledge with us, so they can not translate our articles perfectly. I think the reviewer of an international journal or the journal itself, should have a translator.

I am a non-native English speaker and recently my article was rejected citing poor English as the reason. I am not alone, there are several like me. I do not think what happened to me is wrong, but I certainly think that it is an important problem which needs to be resolved. Complete freedom to think and express (without non-scientific barriers) is a basic requirement for novel discoveries and inventions. I fully respect journals' requirements about language but have been thinking of following solutions for sometime:

(a) Having citable, peer-reviewed informal journals where language is not important. I understand that sometimes the content may be non-understandable to many but I think tables and graphs have enough information to convey.

(b) There should be online training available on "how to write good English for research manuscripts". I received some informal training and I think that has helped me. Please share if you know where I can get online training.

I think English is not the most important reason for your findings. I feel the quantity and quality of research combined with domination of these three countries in global decision making (most of the editors, reviewers, members of important committees are either from these countries or share the thought process originating from these countries) are the most important reasons. In my country the quantity of research compared to these countries is negligible and whatever research happens, most of it is of questionable quality/relevance/importance/application. Hence, a good quality, relevant and applicable research being submitted to a good international journal is an uncommon or sometimes rare event. Rejecting such paper on the grounds of language heavily affects the research and its reporting in non-English speaking countries.

Many good points have emerged in the past few hours! Thanks to all! Richard, I must agree with you on international collaboration. I do that and did it in the past when I worked in Canada and UK. Conference publications seldom make great impact. As Zulganef said in many non-English nations there is pressure to publish in impact factor journals. Some journals - in fact quite a few - offer English Editing help, but not at beginner English level. - Dean: Native language publications seldom get into the cited arena of science. If I do not know about it, I cannot use it in my work, and of course cannot cite it. - Saleh: Your solution works only if your colleague who writes up the report in English is also an expert in the field. - Bridget: You have raised a good point. A prejudice (or at least a certain level of skepticism) about research from "non-research" cultures does exist, but in my experience as a non native English reviewer, it is often justified by the fact that some papers do not even match a 3rd year dissertation project when it comes to research methodology and statistical analyses. These two aspects of research report are perhaps the least language-dependent!? Concerning ethics, I can only share my experience from UK, Canada, and Hungary. In all these nations, research - in my field (psychology, social sciences) - cannot be undertaken without approval by an ethics committee. At my university even 3rd year dissertations projects undergo ethical scrutiny. However, this practice may not be so at other universities.

Rahul: 1) That is a great idea about a standardized graph/table publication data base! 2) Writing scholastic papers in English - well, workshops and courses are available! In Hungary there are many, but those who cannot master the language, will not attend:-) 3) About quality - again you made a good point. I am not concerned about poor quality papers. I am concerned about papers that would shape the science in a given field, but because the scholar is/was discouraged from English publication, throws in the towel and publishes where is easy for her/him! Then the work remains on the dusty shelves of a national library, ...unknown to many.

Usually "poor" English is real problem. We try to solve them asking professional translator for help. However, it is difficult to find specialist in some narrow science domain. Some journal performs final, pre-publishing language corrections and ask the author for acceptance. This is good idea and it is worth to disseminate to help the researcher from "non-English" countries.

It is true the quality of the paper matters. it should not be compromised by poor writing skills in this famous English- language. To work out your weakness is a quality of learning process. However, stick on the format and reject the paper on this basis, it is a discouraging factor to those who are on the learning path.

A university is so-named because of the universe of faculties it contains. Approach students in the English Faculty to help you polish your paper.

Exciting to see how many are interested in this debate. I believe this is actually something where more research can be conducted. Attitude of reviewers towards submissions from countries that are not scientifically established. Or something related to this.

Emphasizing the "hard" research part only sounds reasonable at the first glance..But, I would like to highlight that the way you convey a message affects the way it is perceived..I do agree that quality of the research is most important, but I also believe that writing is an art. The way you structure the information to create flow helps the reader to access the things you did or want to say. This will obviously help you to make your work known because (I believe) people like a good read (even in scientific journals). Starting to establish journals where language is not an issue would destroy some of the lingual creativity. Personally, I am not very interested in papers that are not well written. That does not mean I do not respect the work that has been done. Collaboration is probably the best way to go, even though this might be difficult for scholars from countries with lower international reputation. I believe initiative needs to come also from those who have resources and recognition. I do believe that research in "exotic" countries will benefit all of us. It might even bring us back to the origins of research..The exploration of things we don't know in places we don't know..

As I read the various responses, I think that there may be a missing ingredient. Namely, the responsibility that universities expecting professors to publish in high impact journals should bear.

The universities imposing strong publishing demands upon their faculty should offer editing assistance to their faculty BEFORE submission even occurs and BEFORE revisions are submitted as well. In addition, these institutions should also provide seminars and/or other training in how to write articles in better English; the loss of otherwise useful research because of the language issue should be high enough to make it socially efficient to support faculty in such ways.

You cannot expect the Journals to clean up a poorly written paper; the truth is that they already in many cases copyedit papers to marginally improve the writing. Furthermore, in nearly all cases, Editors are unpaid!

Perhaps one way to address some of the issues raised here -- which are very important ones -- would be to simultaneously address another problem: External Validity and Generalization of findings across samples of individuals (and perhaps settings as well). In so many journal articles, for example in the top journals in social psychology, often samples are restricted to American University or College Students. What if more projects were conducted simultaneously in English-speaking countries (with authors for whom there is no language barrier for top journal acceptance) and in other countries internationally (designing the studies together perhaps in the first place to insure that the methods, approach, theory "make sense" from a more international perspective)? This would help international authors who may have difficulties with English and simultaneously help "mainstream" authors enhance the generality of their work. What is needed would be a mechanism for authors requesting collaborators (a kind of collaborator exchange) with guidelines for the nature of the questions and how the collaboration might proceed (and clear guidelines for authorship, etc.).

Yes..collaboration..learning from each other. Thats an important key.

Personnally, I believe that this is a double problem: on the one hand it is a fact that English is an international tool in science communication but on the other hand it is also a fact that methods of evaluating and ranking journals, reviews, etc. but also universities and other sorts of research and higher education institutions have been started first in the USA and, then, imported in the rest of the world - more recently also in Europe.

I agree Peter! It is good to have a common language, and because high quality (at least most!?) papers are published in English, most graduate students do have to know English, and most likely they will, so the issue will come down to impressions, beliefs, and perhaps prejudice about the origin of the papers. I personally have my experiences (this is one reason why I have posed the question); When I worked in Canada and the UK and sent papers for publication, about 20% of my papers were rejected at the first instance, now that I submit with a Hungarian affiliation, about 50 -60% of my papers are rejected and most of these are not even sent out for review! Same person, same English, so if it is not "prejudice" then maybe I am getting rusty in science and instead of evolving through experience I may be regressing for some reason:-)

Rusty regressor!

Also, perhaps more papers are being submitted, and the competition to get accepted is increasing.

Especially in IF journals:-)

Many thanks, Attila, for having reported your experiences which don't represent an isolated case and which, as I believe, demonstrate that all the folk about a (probably necessary) common communication language however hides never discussed political, economical and finally culturally consequences.

'You can put lipstick on a pig .... and it will still be a pig' ...

I don't believe that we need to 'master' other languages, but we should have access to the resources that support international communication. I edit many papers that are written by ESOL speakers and although some are more clearly expressed than others, I can nearly always shape the work to meet the needs and expectations of its target journal/audience ... unless it is a pig.

A writers work is always their own, so if you are hyper-specialist then your editor has to trust you on the more detailed points. Sometimes though, the science and academic approach (+/- the language issues) are what really lets people down and this is nothing to do with the disadvantages ESOL speakers have.

Straight translation often goes word-for-word and so lacks the shaping and expression that is needed to publish. I would be completely unqualified as a translator (even though I have 4 languages), but I can take a basic translation and make it fit for purpose (if it is not a pig). That said, I am doing an auto translate keyword search in the world top 20 languages at present (limited to the first 200 'hits'). More often than not, you can get the gist of what is being said, but the results sometimes make you laugh, cry, wail ... often at the same time.

In terms of ESOL - you need a rough knowledge yourself (to navigate the correspondence & communication), a competent translator (who can do word-for-word fairly well) and a good academic editor (who will make it the most glamorous pig it can be) ... the rest is up to you!

Congratulation that you can take a basic translation and makes your article received by an International journal editor, I am not as confidence as you since there were some of my papers rejected by some journals. anyway, I still try to improve my English written. and of course it is up to me.....thank you, I don't understand the analogy of a pig..you mean that if someone could not translate to English is a pig......??????

The expression used simply means that you cannot make beef from a pig, i.e., if the research is bad, no editor can ever fix it.

You know I had some premonitions of this analogy being troublesome ... but I like it anyhow :-)

Ian is right - if the research and construction is bad, then it does not matter how good the language is - it is always going to be a bad article & probably get rejected. Nothing to do with anyone's personal attributes, but hopefully it proves that people are often willing to look beyond the initial issues of language and study the actual subject matter - if it is good, then they will often simply ask you to fix the language and expression before you re-submit :-)

Sorry, but I think that this is however a bit naive to consider as secondary (for "ESOLs" and even "non-ESOLs") the question of English as a communication tool.

Scientific publishing in English aside, the whole scientific communication is more or less realized in English (or some sort of piginized English): conferences, international project calls (like those of the EU, the ERC, etc.) and also more informal exchanges like here in RG (imagine only if I answer you in French or German - for me, personnally, much more easy to use in order to elaborate well argued, fine-attuned answers to your in my opinion very strange metaphor using the in itself already strange opposition of "pig" and "beef").

The fluency of English in all these "domains" of scientific communication represents obviously a competitive advantage and, hence, personal as well as more general political and economical consequences.

I am agree with Peter that fluency in English is a competitive advantage today in term of communicates our idea globally and scientifically, but I think to be fluent in English is hard for someone who is English is not his/her primary language like me. I don't know what is the solution......? sometimes I think when I read an article in English Journal, the idea is not so special....meaning that the idea is not new that I can write article like that, but the language barrier makes a handicap for me to expressed my idea internationally.

I think that it's important to express your ideas/train of thought as clearly and concicely as possible. People often think they have to "impress" with language but the best papers are the most simply written.

That does not mean that the language doesn't matter; at our department we have papers checked by a native English speaker prior to submitting for publication.

Exactly - if people write in other than simple terms, they more often than not have not thought the subject through properly. This in turn makes it easier for the translator and the academic editor. We have to play with the hand we are dealt, so it is perhaps more positive to discuss ways to overcome barriers than to dwell on negative aspects of fairness, competition etc.

Mary - to use an English colloquialism: us academics are sometimes 'too clever by half' ! (with the result that few people understand us & the useful potential of our work is reduced).

We often hear people saying that their topic is thoroughly complex 'by necessity', but who are we writing for? Ourselves: look, I know loads of statistical terms and can write >50 words without a full stop; Our Supervisor: (see previous + lots of outdated formulaic constructions about methodology); Our Academic Peer Group: of course, if I waffle on using some buzz words and complex (unexplained) reasoning, it might be easier to pat me on the back rather than run the risk of people thinking you did not understand; the People with Odd Shaped Heads: (you'd better prove your point simply and clearly otherwise they will see straight through you and not give you the time of day); or Our User: 1+2+3=6, 6 means give Mrs Jones the blue pill - you can do this because it takes little time & is cheap compared to the red pill - for further information read the highly complex waffle by us et al. (2013)....

Lots of clever folk put simple language down as naïve or basic, but if it conveys the message in enough detail, then more people have a chance of understanding ... & dare I say using it. I am in favour of promoting access to language tools like translation and editing so that us with 'normal' skills can be understood in a way that meets the needs of our audience. My recent searches have turned up loads of useful stuff that influences my field - ok, I didn't get it word for word, but I got the general meaning and that is a whole lot better than nothing. It would be good to see more English speakers make efforts to access foreign language data, the same way that non-English speakers make efforts to join the global debate :-)

I would like to add two experiences - the first personal and the second of my friend's friend who moved from US to Australia. Two years ago I submitted a paper to an American journal. The paper was rejected at resubmission by words "after rereading the paper I do not know any more what an American student can gain". The paper was published few month later in an European journal and was already cited. The person I am speaking about had a very high publications record in high impact journals going up to ten cumulative in few years in PRL with a very low rejection rate and as a principal author. After his institution was changed, he continued to submit as a principal author but his rejection rate increased several times in highly rated American journals going to approx 1 published out of 10. Would you believe that his science has become so bad in a year or two?

Well, we non-English speakers meet often referees that reject on the basis of the sound of language or simply on the basis of institution, when it is known; even on editorial levels sometimes. You English speaking referees, do no think that if you are benevolent, also other referees are as well. There are still many having a super native speaker ego. But, it is becoming better and better, I have to admit.

Mojca, your stories match mine (read it above), I agree...! Because editors know the origin of the papers, blind review doesn't help either! Maybe Editors should be also blind regarding source of submissions? It would be fairer (I think) theoretically, but it is unlikely do be adopted in practice.

The English language is remarkably easy to dominate badly…

the grammar of the English language is the opposite, or better, is contrary to Latin languages. Portuguese, Spanish. French, Italian and even Polish, has a mental idea and grammar completely different way. Even common programs to English translation, give huge mistakes because they are made by and for those who speak English.

If the native Anglo-Saxons had to translate their papers for the various languages ... and present them in native/local language, everything would be different.

There is a completely different profession of the research, called translator. Translators, translate ... researchers do research…:)

@Eduardo, but both (translators and researchers) read, and they read a lot, I'm afraid. So, people like me (as a German researcher and referee being a non-native speaker) at least need to understand the valid justifications of claimed results.

I never reject papers only because of bad language; hold on, I actually did this once, because the language wasn't appropriate (informal style). I try my best to understand what the authors mean, since they have put a lot of effort in writing the manuscript. That results in rejection of papers with excellent English but no convincing arguments for claims (or sometimes no claims of useful results at all).

BTW. I would be completely illiterate in a world dominated by Chinese language.

One day Goggle translator will be so perfect that this discussion will be irrelevant:-)

Or one day all people will speak one language like in the ancient times?-)

Yes Michael, I agree, inventing the wheel even if it is written in "bad" language, won't be rejected, but Editors are not full experts in all of their areas of specialty and they reject the papers (with some bias) before sending out for review... Once (my?) papers get reviewed, the rejection rate is much less, especially if subjected to blind review!

It certainly does. Language barriers prevent researchers from integrating and using the ultimate, state-of-the-art information in their specific field on study. Similarly, language barriers prevent researchers from disseminating their projects, ideas and findings.

The solution ... a global language for research!

Esperanto? :-)

Sorry to come in as late as this! BUT: Having one language hinders (young) researchers to develop their ideas in their own language. To me, a common language is not a solution. We "simply" have to fight the idea that English is the only and easy language to decently publish research.

Rudolf

(German accustomed to present in English and French ..., member of different editorial boards in research on mathematics education, journals with German, English and French as "main" publishing language)

Good point, Rudolf. And the European languages even go back to common grounds of thinking... after all.

I encounter a much broader divide in understanding each other's ideas here for Thai language. The underlying question then is how to convert one way of expressing concepts into another with the help of language.

Dear Attila, I am afraid that besides all formal arguments, there is an expectation that everyone Publishing in international papers should write in English on a Level of a native Speaker. This makes it very difficult for those who are not. The Situation might be similar to the Status of German as global scientific language before WW2. And the effects were almost the same: The vast majority of leading scientific publications were in German, while also most of the Nobel Prizes were won by researches of German universities. According to my Impression language poses to be a hurlde for those who are not native Speakers.

@ Michael: "In the medium term there might be a language shift from English to Chinese on the horizon (not actually taking place, I admit); it's just a matter of global power and influence."

I do not think that (academic) language is dominated by the number of speakers, but more by the global potential that the language has to disseminate knowledge. Chinese has 1,213 m speakers, but is spoken in 31 countries. English is spoken by only 329 m speakers, but reaches 112 countries as an acknowledged 1st/2nd national language. Likewise: Spanish 329/44, Arabic 221/57, Hindi 182/20, Bengali 181/10, Portuguese 178/37, Russian 144/33, Japanese 122/25, German 90.3/43, Javanese 84.6/5, Lahnda 78,3/8, Telugu 69.8/10, Vietnamese 68.6/23, Marathi 68.1/5, French 67.8/60, Korean 66.3/33, Tamil 65.7/17, Italian 61.7/34, Urdu 60.6/23. These are the 'L20' ;-)

English is only the 3rd most widely spoken world language, but importantly it reaches nearly twice the number of countries than any other language. I think this is where its influence comes from. Chinese may have a mass of speakers, but it is restricted in its overall world distribution so I think that although the science and research of China is becoming ever-more visible, English is still likely to remain as our main communication tool for the foreseeable future. The move I would like to see though, is the development of tools and techniques that allow researchers to access foreign language articles, without becoming polyglot experts ... I am sure we have other things we would rather be concentrating on ;-)

@Nicholas, that was exactly was I meant with 'global power'. I think I acknowledged your point (underscored by your current data) by referring to 'global power and influence'. Don't you think, the Chinese (apart from the number of speakers) will have the need to take a greater share of global power to secure the development of this vast country and its population? That's what I wanted to point at. I don't see, as I saidwith your view., a sudden change. So, I agree with your view.

Andreas you made a good historical-philosophical point, that eventually raises the possibility (or the the far fetched (today) history-driven theory) that one sunny day we will need to publish in Chinese. The big Q is still there... if not English, if not German, if not Chinese... does language-dominance hinder global scholastic enlightenment? :

Attila - tricky to say if language-dominance hinders or helps - but, personally, I would argue that it's more towards the latter. A 'universal' language, whatever it is, must be financially more attractive to publishing houses, editors, readers etc. There is always the chance that some research may get 'lost' in that system - but good research usually has a way of finding the right audience - one way or another.

P.S. - Nicholas, just read your response - and it's a very good one!!

In this perspective, I also agree that a common scholastic language is an advantage to most. However, some reports published in other languages may be missed out in constructing or discussing results of studies written in the common language, and their -non English papers - contributions remain ignored, thus possibly generating unnecessary research and/or affecting data interpretation of the English works.

As Attila Szabo has done in the area of sport and exercise psychology, if similar analysis is done in every subject area, the results might be the same or even more skewed. Mastery of English language certainly matters to successfully publish in high profile/impact factor journals. Many hard working researchers from non-English speaking countries have not been as successful as researchers of native English speaking countries in publishing their papers in top end journals of their subjects. The mastery of English language may be linked to either a person is native speaker of English or the person is educated in English speaking countries or works in English speaking countries.

On the topic more generally, see the recent paper:

Alejandro, Bortolus. 2012. “Running Like Alice and Losing Good Ideas: On the Quasi-Compulsive Use of English by Non-Native English Speaking Scientists.” AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment: 1–4.

Dear Yaakov, - Is there a way to provide a "closed-circuit" link to the article, available only to the members of this discussion?

Dear Attila,

Since I don't know if/how to do this on Researchgate, and won't be able to look up the procedure right now, I will send it to you directly.(email) so that you might make it available to interested colleagues.

Simple version - send it attached to a private message to selected people you follow (you cannot message people you don't follow).

My question though, is why "closed-circuit"? RG is open ....

I meant those interested, those in the circle of answers:-)

Just attach it to a post - those following the question will all see it & those who come later or find it in the future will also benefit ;-)

As a journal editor of a 2.39 IF journal, I have found the quality of the research is much more important than the writing. I routinely recommend editorial services to papers that have promise but have language issues and simply reject those that do not have promise. Of course if there is a major barrier the research is unlikely to be submitted sine my journal publishes only in English. In the latest issue there are 8 papers: 4 have at least 1 author who is a native English speaker (although several have major authors who are Thai); 2 papers are from native Spainish speakers; 1 from a group from China, Ghana, and Ethiopia; and 1 from a group from Italy, Norway, and Spain. Thus, Half are from non-native English speakers and other articles have non-native English collaborators/writers. Good science sees to win in this case.

It is great to see that modern scholarship is getting people together from all over the world and helps them collaborate effectively.

@ Edgar - Your explanation is much clearer than my earlier offering of 'You can put lipstick on a pig... but it will still be a pig' ;-)

Hi

I am not a sport science subject expert but I do believe language is one of the major issues for paper publication for people whose not having English as a first language in all field. There are many good papers I have seen because I review few good papers for reputable journals but many of the papers were rejected. I am not sure how this can be overcome but It will be good to have an avenue where these group of people can submit their papers and get them edited by expert. This a part of academic contribution.

Undoubtedly you lose good idea/data/information if an article cannot be published. However, if the above cannot be communicated--or worse yet, miscommunicated--no one really benefits. I am a peer-reviewer for a number of (English-language) journals, and occasionally have been asked to review an article by a non-English speaker. Some of them are really so poorly written (in English) that an interested reader/peer reviewer gives up in frustration. People are busy and cannot take the time to figure out what is really meant when sentence structure is poor, grammer is almost non-existant, and word choice is faulty. Once I spent 4 hours trying to rewrite an article by Italian authors that had merit, but stopped as I was essentially re-doing the entire article and realized that I could be misinterpreting what was really meant. It was obvious that the authors did not take the time to even use Google Scholar's "translation" programs--which still have problems, but might get you closer to what is trying to be communicated. The peer-reviewer at least would have a better base from which to evaluate an article. Since then, editors at journals with which I am familiar "weed out" badly written articles so that a peer-reviewer never even sees the work.

At any rate, it is incumbent that the authors use a technical editor to "rework" an article so that the new information can be communicated properly. Everybody loses otherwise.

Thomas - good point and agreed. I review fro over 30 international journals. I like to think that i am 'generous' when it comes to non-English authors trying their best to make their manuscripts understandable and follow the conventions of the journal house-style. However, like you, I'm not going to favour a submission where you have to 'guess' and edit what is being presented. Authors that submit manuscripts 'hoping for the best' should expect the worst-case scenario.

Both Thomas and Dean's points are well taken. No one will worry if English is so poorly written. However, the main issue is not about very poorly written English. Rather, the contentious thing is about given that two papers have the same standards of technical and substantive contents, the paper written by non-English speaking author is almost likely to be rejected even with reasonably good standards of English. It may be not uncommon to see papers which are not exceptionally strong in technical and theoretical contents but written by native English-speaking authors with mastery over English language have much smoother process of acceptance in not all but some of the top ranking journals.

In this context, Edgers point and approach are extremely appreciable. Hope science is the winner.

Last year, one of my papers was rejected by a top ranking journal, not because of the topic (interesting), not because of the methodology (no problem), no. It was rejected because of the language: "good for a NNS but not up to the standards of our journal". The paper had been revised by a native speaker who is a professional proofreader, but that was still not good enough.

Good points .... but my concern is about good papers, with strong research output. Even with poor English, the gist of the contribution should come through after reading the Abstract. I am mainly concerned about rejection by the Editors - before sending out a paper for refereeing - of the non-English origin publications, even when the usage of English is good. Language often is the culprit, but in reality bias may be the genuine concern of those who write good papers in English but have a "less famous (from research output perspective) affiliation". Indeed, why did about 90-95% of my papers get a proper review when I dad a UK affiliation and less than 50% make the referees' desk since I have a HU affiliation? It is not only language I feel...

@Beate: I undertake the same function for many here in Finland & they report the same thing - simply being a native speaker is not enough. Proofreaders for this type of work have to also be academics who understand a) what the author is trying to say, & b) how the reader/reviewer is likely to see it & anticipate their possible reaction. Some say that English is becoming less of a language & more of a tool for communication. Combining the soundness of research and the skill to express it to others are both key requisites to getting our work published for others to see. In my experience, if the research is sound then language issues can often be fixed. If the research is flawed however, the problem will never be fixed by language.

Good point Nicholas - there has to be a balance. Hiring professional proof-readers to 'mimic' the English house-style of a journal (if they are really capable of doing that) - is not the only thing needed.

in my view the language is beg problem in the publication I do believe language is one of the major issues for paper publication for people whose not having English as a first language in all field. There are many good papers which idea is much better than those who have attractive English language but rejected due to the normal writing.

on the other hand it is not only creating problems for the developing country PhD scholars but also for the those whose not having English first language.

i am suggesting to the Journals and Book editors that if checking the quality of the research article, then check the idea of the article not the language. because when you select the paper for publication please suggested to the author to resend the paper in the due after stander of the language.

in this way the one side the editor will get Quality material and the other side giving support to the researchers who not have English first language.

IT is a very good discussion on the issue of language. I would like to throw a question. How can we help those who have good ideas but poor language. That the main issue here

Somebody once said something along the lines of 'the best science is worth nothing unless it is made known'. I have always thought that bigger institutions that generate knowledge (universities, teaching hospitals etc) should employ someone who's main role is to help people get their ideas and words into a form that will meet the needs of publishers and the global audience that seek information. Of course, this is not simply language translation, but also academic editing. Such a person can also take a role in wider academic development. I see the result being that researchers, students & faculty will have less of a burden in getting their work presented at an acceptable level & the markers such as publication will go up as a result. Ok - institutions may simply see an additional salary to be paid, but in terms of long term productivity & the promotion of their institution & staff, it could be a worthwhile investment.

One problem I find is that sometimes scholars with poor English skills really have not read many of the articles in the Journal they are submitting to. At least a dozen times a year I get articles where a word appears related to the Journal title, but the article clearly has no relation to the journal. Had the authors attempted to read articles in the journal they would know the submission does not belong there. This goes beyond a language barrier and points to a another problem that crops up in science - chasing the Impact Factor.

Researchers with good ideas and good research, but poor language skills, need to realize they can be published (often after extensive editing), but they may need to submit the paper to journals with lower Impact Factors. I know the reasons for going after high IF journals, but the realities are that with limited journal space, papers that are poorly written will not compete well against those that are well written. Editors have to quickly eliminate papers that don't meet standards and one easy standard to enforce is "readability". Major editing after acceptance is not an option because often the organization of thoughts is too disorganized to even be able to review the article appropriately.

In many cases where the paper comes in with poor writing it is not just the grammar and syntax that is poor, it also is he organization and presentation of the idea, data collection, and presentation of results. Much of that issue would be solved by reading articles in the journal before submitting to the journal. For non-English speakers, even programs like Google Translate, that won't help with grammar and writing will provide a good enough translation to understand the format, article structure, and "thought process" of authors who publish in the targeted journal.

I still firmly believe that good ideas can transcend poor writing (but perhaps not in a specific journal), but they cannot transcend both poor writing AND poor quality thinking on the part of authors.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/When_a_manuscript_is_developed_to_a_publication_who_should_become_the_authors_and_in_what_order?cp=re65_x_p2&ch=reg&loginT=UglaK25yVlwtV2UCpczuwJy2fJU5mbrz2gzWRnXBMfOItvP3UA7eNQ%2C%2C&pli=1#view=52a49075d039b17b258b4682

There is another debate going on about authorship of articles (see above link). If we look at the requirements for authorship & the comments about supervision, I think it leads to the fact that if you want your work to 'see the light of day' in English language journals, then you don't necessarily have to master the English language yourself, but you do have to have the language of your paper 'mastered' by someone in order to get a realistic chance of acceptance.

Interesting thread if you are interested :-)

It is an interesting thread Nicholas and Edgar. Particularly so, some of the latter observations. Nicholas - i do like the idea of non-English-speaking universities employing someone specifically to interpret and target certain journals etc. However, I suspect that it would actually take a team or a department to fulfill that task - but would be well worth the financial outlay. Edgar is correct - without such provision - submissions are always going to appear 'second-best' - even with active editing. Editors, at a minimum, do have an early checklist of 'what stays; and what goes'. As Nicholas also points out - 'aware' non-English authors have to be 'realistic' about acceptance - rather than necessarily 'blame the system' (I hope that I haven't misquoted you Nicholas).

@Dean: I would not advocate having a department of interpreters. I often see straight translations that do not convey the science within a paper (just tecnically correct words). As I have said previously, in this context English is perhaps better regarded as a 'tool' to help disseminate work to its largest audience. The author must have a fair grasp if they want to interact at this level (both to write papers and read articles), but an academic editor then sorts out what would be otherwise completely acceptable (spoken) language, into a form that meets the journal requirements. I think that our sphere has a very specific 'style' & this is understandably often beyond the reach or perception of people who may otherwise have a reasonable level of spoken English. Perhaps it is this that gives the impression of bias: 'I can speak English but they still say it is not good enough'.

@Nicholas: When I wrote 'professional proofreader' I meant a person who professionally corrects research papers, not just a native speaker. But even though, they told me there were too many FLS issues with my paper to accept it.

I would then question the efficacy of the service you use. If there are issues that cannot be corrected on an authors behalf (to avoid any ethical issues such as 'ghost writing'), then I always tell an author that IMO their work is unlikely to be published & they need to do x, y & z. Whether they take this on board though is up to them. If it is specifically language that has prevented your acceptance, then if you have followed the guidance given, I would question the quality of the service you are getting, not the scrutiny of the journal or reviewers.

Hi Nicholas - I don't mean a team of translators/interpreters. I mean a team of academic 'developers'; perhaps a few translators - but also a team consisting of those with experience already submitting to established English-language journals, as well as methodologists etc - and a 'director' to overview the process.

@Nicholas: That just wasn't the problem. The service is very good and highly professional. But sentences that were totally correct (after the proofreading) were criticized by the reviewers and suggestions made to rewrite the sentences to something that did not reflect the meaning. To me it looked as if a non-native speaker criticized the language use of a native speaker. Really queer.

I wanted to stay quiet, but I cannot.

There are two groups discussing the problem now. The first group keeps saying that language is not a problem by itself, but that usually science is not good enough. Then comments become even stronger, that people should aim for lower rank journals first (what about American natives and employed in America, they could start high from very beginning?), that professionals non natives cannot become good enough to help with the writing, etc.

The other group try to show a different picture by their own examples (lower rate when changing institution, not considering science at all but rejecting on the basis of language etc.)... Let me put it straight. From all that could be read even in this open thread it is evident, that there are prejudices against non-Americans (English) or non-American (English) laboratories and their results. These prejudices are often phrased as language problems.

From my personal experience (around 80 publications even in highly ranked journals) after starting to work in a new field (the physics education after the theoretical soft matter physics) all my papers submitted to American journals were rejected but later without problems published in European journals and all of them were already cited, so there were not completely rubbish I suppose. Was a language or was anything else? Europe is much softer with this respect, according to my experiences and according to several experiences of my colleagues.

Has anybody seen any statistics? American journals vs American authors and laboratories in comparison with the rest of the world and European journals vs English native speakers and the rest of the world?

Please apologize that I was rather straight.

To Aishah Ali

How can we help those who have good ideas but poor language?

we can help of those who have poor language in the process of selection that to suggest the author that your ideas is good but give your article to some linguistic experts for improvement.

as well as do his/her help by the editor as humanitarian base to not waste a valuable idea and to not dis-heart the author....

I endorse the straight talk of Mojca Čepič.

Mojca - good points. I'm English. The vast majority of my publications are in European-based journals. I've tried (admittedly not that hard) to 'crack the US-market' - but with far less success. Obviously, my lack of success is nothing to do with my 'mastery' of English. From my experiences, US-based journals (although the situation is being forced to change where they are governed by international [often Eurpoean-based] publishing houses - such as Wiley and Elsevier) will usually favour US-centric manuscripts; regardless of the quality of English. Such articles also heavily cite US-based studies in their reference lists - often to the exclusion of good quality international studies.