Non-native English-speaking Authors Research Articles

Early career researchers have questions about peer review—we asked the ASLO editors for answers

Early career researchers have questions about peer review—we asked the <scp><i>ASLO</i></scp> editors for answers

Proper Scholarly Writing for Non-Native English-Speaking Authors: Choosing Active and Passive Voice, Rewording, and Refining Texts.

Proper Scholarly Writing for Non-Native English-Speaking Authors: Choosing Active and Passive Voice, Rewording, and Refining Texts.

Peer Review Publication Skills Matter for Academicians

Dear EditorOn July 21 (Sunday) and 23 (Tuesday) 2019, I had an opportunity to hold another workshop titled “How to write a scientific paper?” for Ph.D. students in Microbiology Department, Basic Sciences Faculty, the Islamic Azad University, Shahr-e-Qods Branch, Tehran, Iran. I received brilliant feedback from the participants encouraging me to publish this letter to the editor.The difficult work of writing is an art like rasping and grinding a rough diamond to have a polished and smooth diamond (1) or like making a film (2). Publishing peer-reviewed papers is a criterion for evaluating academic professionals and is an effective means of forming an academic career and resume (3).As we know since the ancient era, the published texts are used as public official means to communicate with diverse people and populations. According to the latest archeological studies, the first handwriting belongs to 10400 years ago discovered in Baluchestan Province, the southeast of Iran (4).The primitive means of scripts have evolved and now we have high-tech tools to publish different types of scripts as softcopies and hardcopies, as well as traditional and online publications (4, 5). English as an international language may connect all people around the world. Therefore, publishing scholarly papers in English language journals promotes the visibility and citation of the papers (5, 6).A strong scientific paper needs a clear roadmap, a well-designed study, and an up-to-date quality proposal. Blurry hypothesis, poor-designed study, biases, inappropriate sample size (e.g., very small and limited populations or samples), and wrong or insufficient statistical analyses are the most common reasons for the rejection of papers (6-8).I as a non-native English-speaking author and reviewer believe that the non-native English-speaking authors should think, imagine, and write their manuscripts in English. Many young non-native English-speaking authors write their manuscripts in their native language and then translate into English. This is very harmful because it makes your manuscript of poor quality in academic English language, results in more probability of rejection (7). Consequently, in this challenge, the authors should prepare a well-planned manuscript with a strong and clear hypothesis (it goes back to the proposal) and relevant aims. Moreover, proper statistical analyses and calculations, correspondent methodology, appropriate and precise conclusion, sharp and clear figures, and well-designed and self-explanatory tables augment the opportunity of a manuscript for acceptance (Figure 1) (4, 6, 7, 9, 10). AcknowledgementsI have special thanks to Islamic Azad University, Shahr-e-Qods Branch, Tehran, Iran for approving the perfomance of the workshop on “How to write a scientific paper?”. Conflict of InterestThe authors confirm that there are no known conflicts of interest associated with this publication, and there has been no significant financial support for this work that could have influenced its outcome.

Correction:Effects of providing manuscript editing through a combination of in-house and external editing services in an academic hospital.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0219567.].

Effects of providing manuscript editing through a combination of in-house and external editing services in an academic hospital.

BackgroundEnglish editing services are effective for improving manuscript quality as well as providing learning opportunities for non-native English-speaking authors. Herein, we describe the effects of a combined system of in-house and external editing services for handling large volumes of editing requests and providing personalized editing service in academic hospitals.MethodsWe established the Scientific Publications Team (SPT), an in-house editing team in Asan Medical Center in Seoul, Korea. The SPT is composed of two professional editors who manage editing requests sent to external companies while also providing one-on-one in-house editing services. We gathered author satisfaction data from 936 surveys between July 2017 and December 2018 and analyzed the number of editing requests and research publications by segmented regression analysis of interrupted time series data.ResultsThe SPT processed 3931 editing requests in 2017–2018, which was a marked increase compared with prior to its establishment (P = 0.0097). The authors were generally satisfied with the quality of editing services from both in-house and external editors. Upon conducting regular quality control, overall author satisfaction with one external company gradually increased over the course of one year (P for trend = 0.086). Author satisfaction survey results revealed that overall satisfaction of editing service was most strongly correlated with how well the edits conformed to the authors’ intentions (R = 0.796), and was only weakly correlated with quick turnaround time (R = 0.355). We also observed a significant increase in the trend of the number of research publications (P = 0.0007) at one year after the establishment of the SPT.ConclusionProviding a combination of in-house and external editing services resulted in high author satisfaction and subsequent hospital-wide increases in manuscript writing and publication. Our model system may be adapted in academic hospitals to better address the editing needs of non-native English-speaking researchers.

Medical Writing by Non-native English-speaking Authors

The Editor-in Chief of the Journal of Nuclear Cardiology created in 2014 the “Mentorship at Distance Committee” to provide editorial assistance to foreign authors. The chair of the committee discusses in the present communication his 3-year experience with mentoring manuscripts. He addresses the selection of manuscripts, the process of mentoring and common problems encountered and resolved. The mentoring process required the full commitment by both the mentor and the author, because of necessary intensive and frequent communications by email. The average time involved from start to finish averaged about 9 weeks. Eight of 11 mentored manuscripts could be sufficiently revised and were accepted for publication.

NNES RAs: How ELF RAs inform literacy brokers and English for research publication instructors

Non-native English speaking (NNES) researchers often depend on language professionals to translate or edit research articles (RAs). Genre study can identify the types of changes likely to improve RAs' acceptability. Previously, the reference texts for this analysis have been RAs written by NS authors. In this study, the reference texts were Animal Husbandry RAs published by NNES authors in international journals ranked in the second quartile (Q2) for their field. These RAs were compared to RAs written by Indonesian academics in English and in Indonesian with respect to features posited to be barriers to publication (justification for research, use of citations, structure of the Discussion, non-standard English usage, parochialism and conciseness). In each of these areas differences were found between the Indonesian written and reference RAs. Nevertheless, the reference RAs show significant accommodations to ELF styles. Non-standard English that does not hinder clarity, absence of strong justifying arguments or claims regarding the importance of the work are apparently not major barriers to publication in these Q2 journals. In this field, literacy brokers do not need to impose a Western style on authors' work but should focus on clarity of meaning, quality of explanations, transnational relevance and conciseness.

How to Act When Research Misconduct Is Not Detected by Software but Revealed by the Author of the Plagiarized Article

The detection of plagiarism in scholarly articles is a complex process. It requires not just quantitative analysis with the similarity recording by anti-plagiarism software but also assessment of the readers’ opinion, pointing to the theft of ideas, methodologies, and graphics. In this article we describe a blatant case of plagiarism by Chinese authors, who copied a Russian article from a non-indexed and not widely visible Russian journal, and published their own report in English in an open-access journal indexed by Scopus and Web of Science and archived in PubMed Central. The details of copying in the translated English article were presented by the Russian author to the chief editor of the index journal, consultants from Scopus, anti-plagiarism experts, and the administrator of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The correspondents from Scopus and COPE pointed to the decisive role of the editors’ of the English journal who may consider further actions if plagiarism is confirmed. After all, the chief editor of the English journal retracted the article on grounds of plagiarism and published a retraction note, although no details of the complexity of the case were reported. The case points to the need for combining anti-plagiarism efforts and actively seeking opinion of non-native English-speaking authors and readers who may spot intellectual theft which is not always detected by software.

A Cross-cultural Analysis of the Use of Hedging Devices in Scientific Research Articles

Hedging is a significant aspect of academic writing and it is an important resource for L2 writers (Hyland, 1994). Hence, this study set out to compare the frequency of hedges employed in different sections of research papers written by non-native English speaking authors (NNESA) and native English speaking authors (NESA). To this end, 40 research articles written by the two groups of authors was analyzed based on the taxonomy of hedges proposed by Salagar- Meyer (1994). The results showed that generally NESA utilized more hedges compared to NNESA and there is a significant difference between these authors use of hedging devices. The results can have implications for L2 teachers in that they should take measures to familiarize their students with the hedging devices and show them how to use hedges appropriately.

International journal editors and East Asian authors: two surveys

Countries in East Asia – specifically China, Japan, and South Korea – are rapidly emerging as major contributors to global research output. However, owing to barriers in language and culture, it is possible that authors from these countries face unique challenges in getting published. Moreover, as submissions from these countries increase, journal editors may be able to spot some trends in the problems encountered when processing these submissions. This study presents the results of two surveys – one involving non-native English-speaking authors from East Asia and another involving international journal editors. The surveys were designed to throw light on the challenges East Asian authors face in the publication process and the perceptions journal editors have of submissions from East Asian countries. Here, we present and discuss the survey results, highlight gaps in the perspectives of authors and journal editors, and make recommendations to bridge these gaps.

Acknowledging or denying membership: Reviewers’ responses to non-anglophone scientists’ manuscripts

Publishing scientific articles is a crucial activity performed by a scientist to demonstrate inclusion as part of the community of scientists: a community constituted by journal editors, reviewers, authors and readers. A manuscript submitted to journals is first read by reviewers, and their decision to accept it creates membership in the community for the author with its attendant privileges of ingroup status. Rejection bars such membership. In this article we examine the language used by this powerful individual — the journal reviewer — to recognize another individual — the author — as being a member or not. Five reviewer reports of two different manuscripts submitted by non-native English-speaking authors are analyzed in this case study. Complementary discourse analytical approaches are used: group ideology, syntactic structure and personal pronouns. The analysis of the linguistic strategies used reveals three distinct positions that the reviewers adopt within this under-researched genre.

Scientist-friendly policies for non-native English-speaking authors: timely and welcome

That English is the lingua franca of today's science is an indisputable fact. Publication in English in international journals is a pre-requisite for a research paper to gain visibility in academia. However, English proficiency appears to be taken for granted in the scientific community, though this language can be a hurdle for a number of authors, particularly from non-native English-speaking countries. The influence of English proficiency on the publication output of Brazilian authors has never been assessed. We report our preliminary data on the relationship between the English proficiency of 51,223 researchers registered in the CNPq database and their publication output in international journals. We have found that publication rates are higher for those authors with good command of English, particularly written English. Although our research is still underway and our results are preliminary, they suggest that the correlation between written English proficiency and research productivity should not be underestimated. We also present the comments of some Brazilian scientists with high publication records on the relevance of communication skills to the scientific enterprise.

Pediatric cardiology: a problem oriented approach, 1st edition

Pediatric cardiology: a problem oriented approach, 1st edition