Good, clear expression is critical to the effective dissemination of research, in whatever language. I find that it helps both first and additional language speakers and writers to study some examples of expository prose that they really admire. So often students and researchers are completely caught up in their own struggle to write well that they forget to step back and study how other people do it. Read a few articles you really admire and ask yourself what exactly makes them attractive and readable - what makes this mode of expression work. Note turns of phrase, the tone of the introduction and conclusion, the pacing, the writer’s attitude to the subject matter and the intended audience. Especially keen consideration for exactly what the audience needs to know in order to follow the argument and be convinced by it. Good writing follows good reading.

Good, clear expression is critical to the effective dissemination of research, in whatever language. I find that it helps both first and additional language speakers and writers to study some examples of expository prose that they really admire. So often students and researchers are completely caught up in their own struggle to write well that they forget to step back and study how other people do it. Read a few articles you really admire and ask yourself what exactly makes them attractive and readable - what makes this mode of expression work. Note turns of phrase, the tone of the introduction and conclusion, the pacing, the writer’s attitude to the subject matter and the intended audience. Especially keen consideration for exactly what the audience needs to know in order to follow the argument and be convinced by it. Good writing follows good reading.

I agree totally with the very last sentence Laurence Wright - I hasten to add good clear thinking as well. Certainly having an exemplar from which to model one's work on helps also. I tend to think writing is challenging for most but the more you do it, the better your writing practice becomes - generally.

Moreover, writing and getting started is also another key - waiting for all the writing planets to align rarely works. Seems that pushing through a threshold is necessary for the 'flow' to start. Like anything, its a practice that must be worked at - unless of course you are just blessed with writing genius and can get everything perfect the first time.

Some of my mentors who I admire often send me their first drafts and it gives me heart when I see that even they make syntax errors :).

Practice, practice, practice, I guess. For myself, I've had the benefit of doing all my degrees in Great Britain and then in New Zealand. Though English isn't my first language and I personally prefer to speak and write in Malay, my mother tongue, it's all about necessity. As a scholar, when your English is good (though not perfect), you can definitely widen your scholarly network. At the same time, just like everything else in life, learning and using English is something that will take a long time. So, learn it and use it. There are not shortcuts, as far as I know, to become a good speaker and writer of English as a second or foreign language. Thanks Joseph M. Cheer for the question.

Hi, it is about practice. The longer you live in an English speaking country, the more proficient you will become. I now couldn't imagine writing in my mother tongue (Slovakian). I don't have the same 'academic' proficiency in my native tongue that I have in English. I personally don't struggle with academic writing in English, but I make sure everything I do write is then checked over by a native English speaker . Having said that, I would probably do the same if I had to write in Slovakian! :-)

Dear Joseph M. Cheer

You have kindly given a detail account of the problem as well as suggested possible solutions. Let me start by saying: that articles should be written in proper English is beyond dispute. However, I notice that native-like English is not very much required for those whose research works are of scientific nature. The situation is completely different in the humanities and social sciences. If one is publishing a paper in English literature, for instance, the linguistic standards are very high and a native-like proficiency is more often than not required. And since editing services by native speakers of English are not always available or accessible, a paper may be rejected solely on account of its not meeting the linguistic requirements of a certain journal. Reading can be definitely of great use to researchers, but language is creative, not imitative and after all, no one can express your ideas as well as yourself. In a nutshell, most researchers whose native language is not English literally toil to get a paper published in a Q1or 2 journal, hence the slow rhythm with which they publish.

For sure Izabela Pompova - attention to details is the same in any language :). Jinan F. B. Al-Hajaj - you are so right - in the humanities where the emphasis is not on simply describing an empirical data set, the need to craft your words is greater. But persevere and seek out collaborators who complement you.

Hello, Thank you for the question. as a n English teacher whose L1 is not English. I consistently make afford to make my writing better. I read lots of articles in English especially areas I am interested in or the topics I am doing research. I have also taken short courses online. ( I also considering taking online courses on Academic writing on FutureLearn, EdX or Coursera). I read news websites such as BBC.com Economist.com, Guardian, Washington Post, New York times, etc.

But do we remember writing English words very well when using smart phones though it is not our first/mother tongue language? That's why I thought we have to expand these limitations by canceling the use of predictive mode in smart phones if the user's first language is not English.

Sabaah Alhamid an interesting point - not to mention the influence of English language used in popular media.

By not mentioning that influence, we have to raise the following points:

First the lack of vocabulary of the non_foreigner's second language.

Second the ambition of learning new language

Third the scope of work of the non_foreigner that may enforce him/er to use or learn another language

My point of view is that these three issues differ from one to another according to the personal needs or thoughts .for me as a researcher I have found out that English language as a global language will be the widest and may be the "only" lingua franca that non_foreigner will be forced to use or learn in the future.

Dear Joseph M. Cheer, I think this is a very timely question. The language barrier is a real problem for publishing in high impact journals. Paying for translators is a good alternative, but it is sometimes expensive. I think that technology can close the gap with translators. One could think of courses on scientific and argumentative texts in English

Thank you Fabián Andrés Llano - you raise a very important point and that is the ntrecruitment and payme translators. The costs can be very prohibitive and this can exclude students and scholars who might be precariously employed, from poorly resources universities or from devoloping countries and . Also, I've often found that unless the translator has a good grasp of the discipline and the way discussions are framed, they can often fall short. A technical translation only goes so far - the nuance and sensibility might be harder for translators to grasp. Some authors I know say that software like Grammarly can help - but that too has its limitations. Seems to me that one of the best approaches might be collaboration with competent and diligent researchers whose first language is English. But that too has its limitations and assumes that the collaborator might in fact be better than the person whose first language is not English.

Academic English is a second language for English L1 speakers as well because it is a different genre than what an L1 speaker knows and learns initially.

Academic English writing requires a lot of reading in the genre you want to write, practising it, and creating language awareness about your style, vocabulary, grammar etc. With practice, all challenges can be overcome by all writers at different stages of learning to write.

Thanks Alia Amir - I've never really thought of it that way but what you've said gives good food for thought. As a native English speaker and journal editor I am trying to come to terms with my received understandings, especially when reviewing manuscripts by authors whose first language is not English. Indeed, the old adage 'practice makes perfect' applies.

My belief is that, if you have clarity in your thoughts and concepts you will not be handicapped by language in anyway, but the language that embodies your thoughts also carries in it the cultural settings in which you acquired your language .Going by publication standards ,it differs from editor to editor and publisher to publisher as well as your target readership .

Fabián Andrés Llano and Joseph M. Cheer: You are right to be cautious about employing translators. Quality can be variable and in addition, as you rightly point out, the translator might not be keyed to the nuances of the particular discipline or the author's idiomatic discourse. You want to be certain that what is submitted in your name accurately reflects what you want to say. The only guarantee of that is for you yourself to achieve competence in the target language. This creates an additional burden for those publishing in a second or third language, and may seem unfair. But there is no other solution. An associated difficulty arises when kindly thesis supervisors correct and improve the language of students' work, thereby creating a false impression of their writerly competence. When those students are out on their own, they struggle, and its back to the same old problem. I find that informal mentoring helps some students. They submit passages of prose, and you sit alongside them suggesting alternative expressions, rearranging syntax, always asking them to put forward better ways of saying what they are trying to say. This is very time-consuming but it helps students who are really wanting to learn. Always, they must do it themselves.

I am a native speaker who has had good success with publishing. I often work with collaborators who are not native speakers. They usually write clear, understandable "World English" but I often "polish" their writing to improve it in various ways for the scholarly audience.

It is unfortunate that English-speaking people have little knowledge of additional languages, while most of the rest of the world feels the need to know English. Once, French was the "international language." Maybe someday in the future Chinese will be. But I suspect that the situation will not change soon.

Michael W. Marek thanks for your comments. Indeed you are right - I'm all for plurality when it comes to languages. I too act as polisher of manuscripts and find that very rewarding. One issue I have noticed is that now some universities and grant bodies ask authors to verify what percentage of the work is theirs. This can be somewhat arbitrary but is an attempt to combat the practice of team writing that games the publications metrics system. As an editor often times I will see 5-6 authors on a paper and the thought comes to mind. Of course there are differences among disciplines - in the hard sciences members of a lab experiment are usually put on papers whereas in the humanities less so.

Larisa Fialkova - sorry to hear of your experience. You are right in pointing out the arbitrary perceptions that can come about from journals - that can be the issue of editing services - the nuances can go astray.

Joseph M. Cheer Yes, I have seen papers about space probes to the outer solar system that have hundreds of authors, recognizing everyone who had even a tiny role in data collection or analysis. Clearly, only a few actually did any writing.

I think there is work to do in terms of distinguishing the kinds of problems people see in texts written by L2 writers. As a teacher and editor, I come across roughly 3 categories: 1. Passages that are hard to read/understand (likely becuase of the extra cognitive demand of writing in an L2); 2. simple grammar mistakes (verb tenses, differences in conventional uses of commas, dashes...); 3. things that don't sound idiomatic but are not grammatically incorrect. Of all of these, only #1 is a real problem. Good news, it is also relatively easy to fix: you ask the author for clarification, explain that legibility is off in certain passages. Extra revision work focussed on specific passages rather than the whole paper usually fixes the problem. Now, if this kind of mistakes seems to be all over the paper, making it difficult to tell whether the contribution is valuable, you will likely find problems in other, deeper aspects of the paper: fuzzy methods, doubty use of theory, problems with the central argument or research design. In that case... your problem is not with language. Issues of category 2 are easy to spot, usually easy to copy-edit, have minimal impact on legibility and can be spotted by automated grammar software. Having an open mind to category 3, on the other hand, is where you can actually make a transformative change to academic English as dominated by certain countries and certain English speakers (US/UK/Australia). The use of English in ways that are new, non-idiomatic, creative, enrich the language, and are a right of the author. You can point them out, you can make an observation to make authors more aware that what they are writing sounds unusual, but you will never expose your redership to non-dominant Englishes if you push creative authorial decisions out of your journal.

Thanks for your thoughtful explanatio Ana Cortés. I think you have covered all angles comprehensively. One thing though - I find authors will submit a certificate to substantiate that a proof reading service was used. I find that in these situations, authors, in good faith rely on the editing service far too much - after all, the author is the content expert and should therefore be the last filter for the work. How to write to ensure the required nuance is achieved remains a challenge for L2 writers - no question. As for decisions about non-dominant Englishes, tolerance for this can vary widely during the peer review process and editors are subject to criticism for publishing work where the English expression might be seen to be compromised. Thank you again.

Joseph M. Cheer yes, proofreading services are indeed tricky. Especially because finding proof-readers that are also in your field is very difficult. As an L2 writer (who will keep finding challenges working across languages) the only way I have found to overcome the challenges of publishing in English is, well, through publishing in English. In this sense, the work of thoughtful reviewers and editors has been key. Perhaps something to explore is for journals to build guidelines and protocols for reviewers to address language/writing issues that (ideally) makes the reviewer's work easier and also helps authors improve their work. And I mean for all authors. It is not unusual for L1 speakers/writers of English to get the comment "get your manuscript proof-read by a native English speaker".

I am from India, my native language is not English. It is very difficult and harsh sometimes to improve quality of writings as per journal requirements. Then we have only option to improve my writing either through language editor or english author. But, Keep polishing my language in every occasions and my endeavour is still continuing.

Read a lot and listen to any thing on T.V or net that is in English

By using grammar books and an extra efforts

P. Contreras - you raise a very important point about the cultural nuances in the way we express ourselves in writing. The redundancies you speak of add color and flair to language but in academic writing, concisely expressing the point is key. The bigger question is the extent to which such nuances are accepted in English academic outlets. P. Contreras - I don't write in Spanish but I wonder if we consider English speakers writing in Spanish - whether they would be seen as too abrupt and unclear?

I share Raya read alot and using grammely besides that listening alot

ask for english editing services provided by some specialists of course not for free but for sure will improve the written english... gd luck

Since my English is poor and it's too late to improve it, I use two rules: 1. the source text should be extremely simple; 2. it is necessary to repeatedly translate the source text into English and vice versa, correcting both. The more iterations, the more decent the text.

It should be noted that I myself am not able to assess the quality of the text, even after many iterations. The final mark for the reviewer.

If this text is terrible, then I did not follow my rules.

P. Contreras - thanks again for your valuable insights. You highlight how the situation is not always 'black and white'.

Vladimir Rotkin - you are right - ideally, a paper gets better with each iteration. So long as authors are prepared to 'kill their darlings' - a saying used to describe how authors can have great difficulty reducing their precious words. See https://slate.com/culture/2013/10/kill-your-darlings-writing-advice-what-writer-really-said-to-murder-your-babies.html

Here's what my writing process looks like:

1. I give my best to read as many well-written papers as possible related to the topic I am into (selection is made based on the quality of a journal, book publisher etc). I spend some decent time doing this activity, and I like to have all my resources printed in the paper, so I can write and annotate generously.

2. I tend to keep a 'borrowing diary' - when reading different sources, I underline phrases and expressions and re-write them in the diary. I pay special attention to vocabulary and sentence structures. Topic sentences, article argumentation, cohesion structures are also what I re-write as good examples to learn from. I also re-write unclear words or phrases that are new to me and search for their meanings and usage explanations. Once in a while, I go through the diary to refresh my memory and remind myself of those phrases.

3. After I finish my first draft of a piece, I spend some additional time on revising the most important chunks of the text, making sure that the choice of words is adequate, and vocabulary is concise (words do not repeat).

4. Grammar is dealt with in a similar manner - I read the text all over again to check the grammar - join two simpler sentences in one, add conjunctions, make sure I do not exploit passives or conditional structures too much.

5. Finally, I turn on an editing app to check for spelling and dropped articles (alas!)

6. If I am lucky enough, colleagues I work with (English teachers) will find time to read my article and write down their suggestions.

7. I submit and hope for the best.

Ivana Krsmanovic Thanks for your contribution. You have a very systematic way of doing this and that is valuable advice. best of luck with your endeavours.

Ivana Krsmanovic Thanks for your contribution. You have a very systematic way of doing this and that is valuable advice. best of luck with your endeavours.

Yes, of sure... We need good proofreaders for our scientific work.

agreed Laurence Wright

Indeed Silvia Marcu - although, I am often disappointed for authors when I see the quality of work delivered by supposedly professional proof readers.

Raises the question? What makes a good proof reader?

Indeed Silvia Marcu - although, I am often disappointed for authors when I see the quality of work delivered by supposedly professional proof readers.

Raises the question? What makes a good proof reader?