Timeline for Why are there so many papers written in bad English?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
29 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 26, 2023 at 17:00 | answer | added | Ambicion | timeline score: 0 | |
| Feb 14, 2023 at 1:30 | answer | added | Allure | timeline score: 6 | |
| Dec 19, 2014 at 16:31 | comment | added | Superbest | This question seems like hyperbole. Most papers I read in top journals have very functional language, and a few have inspiring (literally - they have inspired my own writing), elegant prose. Can you give some examples of these supposed prestigious publications with bad English? | |
| Jan 21, 2014 at 18:17 | comment | added | badroit | Related question: academia.stackexchange.com/questions/15824/… | |
| Jan 17, 2014 at 18:22 | history | edited | Piotr Migdal | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
changed title as "badly written" is a broader term
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| Jan 15, 2014 at 15:20 | vote | accept | user1049697 | ||
| Jan 13, 2014 at 22:14 | comment | added | Nick S | Also, keep in mind that not all reviewers are native English speakers. | |
| Jan 13, 2014 at 14:45 | answer | added | yo' | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 7:37 | comment | added | Federico Poloni | Why does everyone here assume that it's the reviewers' job to correct English mistakes? We should blame the journals and their "added value" here. | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 7:09 | comment | added | JeffE | I think English language corrections should be done by English language professionals, — Oh come on. Seriously? | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 7:07 | comment | added | JeffE | I tend to go easy on non-native English authors — Me too, if they're students. But I tend to be fairly harsh with tenured authors. After a while, not being a native speaker isn't a sufficient excuse; lots of non-native English speakers write beautiful English. | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 23:36 | answer | added | John Bentin | timeline score: 19 | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 23:12 | answer | added | Joe | timeline score: 6 | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 22:47 | comment | added | David Richerby | U R seriuz? U R rejektin mai paipur "I can curez kansa" becuz U no like the way 1 ritez? I am humble sorri 4 waistin mai live learnin buyoloji insted uv praktisin mai ritinz 4 U. Urz A. N. Ortha. PS U can find morg on googlemapz. --- If you want to ask why journals don't spend more time helping authors to polish their papers, that's a valid and interesting question. But, as it is, it sounds a lot like you're ungratefully criticizing authors for not being very good at writing or, even worse, for daring to learn your language instead of making you learn Mandarin, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, Portugue | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 22:33 | comment | added | Joe | @badroit : the last paper I reviewed had the same issue (native English speaking co-authors who should've caught the problems) ... but it also didn't cite any of the co-authors' papers on related projects, so I told the editor that I suspected the co-authors were likely listed without their knowledge. | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 22:04 | comment | added | Blazemonger | I'm sure it depends a lot on the publication. There are many less-than-reputable academic publications that exist just so researchers can be "published." | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 22:03 | answer | added | fedja | timeline score: 5 | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 21:18 | comment | added | nxx | Peers doing peer review may not also be editors/proofreaders/language experts. Poorly written published papers have probably not had editing done to them as part of the publication process. | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 20:53 | comment | added | gerrit | On the most recent paper I reviewed, the review form had a checkbox for "needs English language corrections". I think English language corrections should be done by English language professionals, not by other scientists. There are plenty of companies that can correct academic English. | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 15:50 | answer | added | David Ketcheson | timeline score: 26 | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 15:19 | answer | added | Johannes Bauer | timeline score: 11 | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 14:51 | answer | added | badroit | timeline score: 69 | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 14:39 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackAcademia/status/421652466552545280 | ||
| Jan 10, 2014 at 13:39 | comment | added | user1049697 | I found this gem in another answer: "the language of science is bad English" academia.stackexchange.com/questions/14921/… | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 13:32 | comment | added | badroit | I don't think there's a black and white here. As a reviewer, I tend to go easy on non-native English authors and try to give a list of typos and sentences to rephrase. If the technical content is good and the paper is readable, I can certainly forgive even frequent minor typos. What really p*sses me off, however, is when I have to review papers with poor English written with co-authors that are clearly native English speakers (i.e., "free-riders" that couldn't be bothered to improve the writing of their own paper). Grr. | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 13:22 | answer | added | Tom-Tom | timeline score: 23 | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 13:13 | review | First posts | |||
| Jan 10, 2014 at 13:15 | |||||
| Jan 10, 2014 at 13:03 | history | edited | user1049697 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
edited body
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| Jan 10, 2014 at 12:55 | history | asked | user1049697 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |