Hi Veronica,

This is an incredibly interesting topic. And I am sure the survey will show some interesting patterns, whatever they may be. I reviewed the introductory material, and there is one point of concern with the way the survey is structured. That is, the surveys asks "If you had to choose "classic" works in Ecology of AUTHORS whose mother language IS [or IS NOT] ENGLISH, which would they be?"

Given that many non-English speakers in the field of ecology (and related fields) are publishing in English language journals, how should be gauge whether the lead author's mother language is English? In some cases, based on the author's full name, we might have a higher probability of guessing correctly. However, I am uncomfortable making such a guess based on the spelling of their name or their home institution.

I realize that we can answer "I don't know" at the bottom of each section, but doing so effectively introduces another form of survey bias. That is, if some names sound more "English" (whatever that means quantitatively), the data may falsely skewed. Conversely, if we guess on the basis of a name sounding "more Spanish," then the data might be skewed in the opposite direction.

I want to take the survey and contribute, but I'm a bit concerned that I missed something or might provide responses that are useless. Do you have any guidance? Are you affiliated with the survey authors in such a way that might allow you to ask them?

Hi Veronica,

This is a very interesting topic, indeed. However, I agree with Patrick that the survey might be improved, because it does have some biases. For example, Fabian Jaksic (not sure if the spelling of his surename is correct) is a well known Chilean ecologist, right?, but his surename is, for sure, not "Spanish" in origin. Some might think -wrongly- that he is an "English" author. The same with me, my surename is German, (my grandparents were) but I am Mexican and I write papers of ecology in the English language. So I think the origin of the names of the authors is irrelevant to the question of weather there is a bias towards ideas of english speaking authors. You might want to contact the survey authors and discuss these things further.

I do thing there is bias towards ideas of english speaking authors in ecology, but I think the main reason for that is that English is the current global language for science in general, so that the bias is not only for ecology, but for science in general.

All the best!

Given my last name, let's just hope no one expects me to write my papers in Gaelic.

@Manuel. I agree 100% that there is a bias towards ideas of English speaking authors for all of science. Good points you raised, and I'm glad I wasn't the only one to notice some potential issues with the survey. I hope these issues can be remedied, because understanding the history behind ecological thought--and scientific ones in general--is important.

Dear Veronica,

As Patrick and Manuel mentioned the question is interesting but bleeds from a lot of wounds. Name, origin, culture, mother tongue of a researcher can be sometimes totally mixed. Some use several languages, some do not know which is his/her mother tongue. My daughter is a professional interpreter and it is strictly determined in this career from which language to which language one can translate and the fact of mother tongue has a huge importance so interpreters are examined very rigorously. It was more than strange that it was proven by a highly competent jury that some of the interpreters had no mother tongue. That means that they were not even able to understand and use the finest nuances of their chosen “mother” tongue.

The questions 2-5 cannot be answered rightly because it is practically impossible to find out in which language environment some of the greatest classical ecological works were born or written originally and the likelihood of an error can be high. It could occur that some were written in language A and a translator translated it into language B and we should score the work of a translator.

Another trouble is that the questions are too complicated and demand too much work and as far as I have experienced many RG participants (as humans usually) do not like to think deeply or work a lot so I am afraid you will not get the number of answers necessary for the evaluation.

As to me if I have time enough I will try to answer as well as I am able.

I note that the main question on “bias towards ideas” is full with vagueness, too and it will be difficult to get an appreciable answer.

I propose to look at https://www.researchgate.net/post/Which_language_can_be_an_ideal_or_optimal_lingua_franca_for_science

Dear András, Patrick , Manuel and anyone who is interested on answering the survey,

I´m Daniela Rodríguez, one of the authors of the survey on which you are discussing on. First of all, I would like to thanks for all your valuables comments and concerns about the way we construct and conduct the survey, as well as if this way will effectively answer our question or not. Not surprisingly, other researchers have had some of the same worries you had and luckily they take the time to let us know their doubts. This situation may be due to the fact that in the explanation of the survey we do not explain in detail the post survey analysis that we should made to avoid most of your concerns. I will explain some details on the processes of constructing the survey and then answer your concerns one by one.

First of all I would like to tell you that this survey has undergone a long process of more than 2 years of work of construction. On the one hand, because we two are ecologist, and we are aware of our knowledge on conducting surveys, we consult with a person who works in the area of social sciences with these tools. In these sense, we should make a commitment about closed questions or open ones according to our objective. The sociologist advised us the methodology used here, with the strategy of making a truly massive diffusion, to try to get the highest response rate, considering that a lot of people can happen precisely what happened to you, that you feel it could takes too much time to answer it. In this sense, we had been working during the last 2 months on constructing a massive e-mails database to try to reach to most scientists on the field of ecology, and to create snowball effect departing from you. Moreover, the survey has undergone a series of tests, changes and improvements, and has been tested with real surveyed along this process, enabling us to reach this final version in the best way (at least we think).

We are also associated with a researcher specialist on digital surveys construction, so we can also easily deal with most of technical problems of the survey you can found.

Please, keep reading the answer to each of the topics you discuss previously,

Patrick Kelley, András Bozsik and Manuel Weber

a) how should be gauge whether the lead author's mother language is English?........... we can answer "I don't know……………….., but doing so effectively introduces another form of survey bias.

Our intention with this survey is not to find the classic papers or book in ecology, but to evaluate what researchers considers a classic paper. This is a key point to answer your concern. If we aim to search for the history of classic papers, we definitely will not work with a survey methodology, but with an historical search of papers under the definition of what we consider a classic paper. As you notice, you have two options: answer what you considerer is the mother tongue or says I don´t know. If you choose the 2º option, there is not a bias for us because you really are not sure on the mother tongue. If you choose the first option, we have planned to confront what answers considers is the true, and what is really the true. This is a task that we should do on the beginning of the process of information of the answered surveys. What is important here is that there is not a wrong answer; we are not asking you for the true, but for what you considered is your true according to your experience.

Manuel Weber

a) English is the current global language for science in general, so that the bias is not only for ecology, but for science in general.

We agree with you Manuel, but we are ecologist and we decided to restrict our search to our research field where we are comfortable to work on the data processing.

András Bozsik

a) The questions 2-5 cannot be answered rightly because it is practically impossible to find out in which language environment some of the greatest classical ecological works were born or written originally and the likelihood of an error can be high.

Our intention is that you tell us what paper or book you consider a classic. Sometimes, it depends on the origin of the researcher. For example, I´m Argentinean and a classic book for me I “Areografía” from Rapopport, but maybe for someone who is native from USA it is not the classic, but its version in English (Areography). This is the type of information we are looking for, the idea of a classic depends on your experience and probably (that´s one of our concerns) on the mother language of the person who answer the survey. As I told you before, we had work during more than 2 years on designing this survey and one of the first things we should define is what a classic is. Finally, and because of the objective of our research, we decided to open the classic definition to whatever you consider a classic (as we said in the introduction section of the survey: note that “a classic” can have been published in the author´s mother tongue or in another language, depending on which work YOU consider as “classic”).

b) Another trouble is that the questions are too complicated and demand too much work

We are aware that these open questions can be time consuming, but our intention is not that people seek in detail the full citation (if they do not remember), but to complete any of the fields that are required (author and / or years and / or title of the work , etc. ) of the classical works they have in mind (for this reason the survey is only intended for people who work in the field of ecology, which at a minimum are graduate students, that manage knowledge of the subject matter). The idea is that we ourselves (Natalia and I) then seek, if necessary, the full quote with "these tracks", I mean, that we invest the time. These questions must necessarily be open, because our goal is to find, if any, those "classics" that only reached that status when they were published in English language, and that information could not be obtained with closed questions (i.e. fixed options for us beforehand).

Finally, I´m a native spanish speaker, so, sorry aboout my english!!!

We hope this answer could help you to clarify some doubts and you are welcome with more questions if you have, or to discuss whatever you considered important.

My best! and thank you again to all of you,

Daniela.

Hi Daniela,

I will answer the survey now. I am travelling abroad for a week tomorrow so no chance for further discussion of some of the points you have here. I will try to do so when I come back.

All the best,