How to tactfully (and constructively) discuss language issues when writing a referee report

Question

Recently I read an article (Prestigious journals make it hard for scientists who don't speak English to get published, study finds) stating that there appears to be minimal effort in a wide swath of (bioscience at least) journals to be more inclusive on the language front. Essentially, publishing in scientific journals, most of which are in English, is much harder for non-native speakers than for native speakers.

Shortly after this, I just happened to receive a request to referee a manuscript which is clearly written by non-native speakers. I like the content of the manuscript, and I plan to expend significant effort to address the specific grammatical issues within the paper.

The question is: how should I go about writing the comments in the report tactfully, which is to say that the authors would not take offence, and also find the comments helpful?

This issue is a particularly sensitive one to me personally because I am a Chinese-Canadian who did all of his education in Canada from secondary school onwards. Nevertheless, I have received a profoundly rude referee report that baselessly attacked the grammar and general writing of a manuscript of mine, while suggesting "the authors should consult a native English speaker before submitting the manuscript again" (my coauthor is ethnically Japanese but also did all of his education in Canada). I have to emphasize that the report was very badly written and was riddled with grammatical errors itself. Because of this, I have vowed to never submit a paper to this particular journal again (though I did not bring this issue with the editors).

I would not want to make the authors of this paper feel what I felt when I received that particular report. So how do I address these issues tactfully in a useful manner?

Answer 1

If you think the science is solid, treat the authors how you would like to be treated. How have people helped you to be a better writer?

I would start my review by highlighting the strengths and why you think the science should be published. Then, provide positive and constructive suggestions. Here's an example of what I might include in a review (as long as it is all true):

I found this manuscript to be timely and presenting relevant for this journal. The topics of X, Y, and Z fit well into the mission and... <provide 1-2 paragraph summary of the research>.

Technically, the work seems solid, although I would like to see (revision points here in a paragraph).

Lastly, the writing had some common mistakes. I have provided some suggestions to help the authors. For example, the authors consistently did not use parallel sentence structure throughout the paper and . As specific examples include:

Line 102: Update "researchers writing and study" to be "researchers writing and studying" and check throughout. Lines 107-108: Contains a run-on sentence. Please consider shortening to be

For these types of reviews, invest as much time as you think appropriate given your own schedule and ability to help.

Edit: Even if you think the science is unsound, please treat others the way you want to be treated. But, do not worry as much about the writing in the review. Focus on the underlying science.

Answer 2

I have not received (nor written) a referee report suggesting that the authors consult a native English speaker for copy editing purposes, but I suspect I would have a similar reaction as you did, in part due to the assumption that native English speakers are necessarily good writers or copy editors — this is certainly not the case. For the situation you mentioned that happened with you, I hope you felt comfortable talking to your PhD supervisors or other mentors. You mentioned in the comments that you didn’t feel empowered to contact the editor yourself — I could imagine that for a truly egregious report a PhD supervisor could have done so on your behalf. There are reasons for not wanting that either, of course. I just hope you had supportive people to talk to at the time.

There have been many cases where I have commented on language usage in referee reports — either due to grammatical or syntactical errors, which I think is what you are referring to, or due to poor organisation, e.g. of the introduction. I would suggest the following steps:

1. If the writing or organisation makes it impossible for you to evaluate the paper, write a first referee report asking for the language issues to be corrected, withholding judgment of the content until you receive a revised version. (I didn’t know this as a PhD student, it’s certainly possible to have multiple rounds of refereeing and revision, for the same paper at the same journal.) Or, contact the editor directly about this. Personally I would only do this in extreme cases, since/if I can imagine an editor outright rejecting the paper on the basis of writing alone, which is not my goal.

2. Split your referee report into a “content” section and an “exposition” section. State explicitly that any issues with exposition do not detract from the content, assuming this is true.

3. In the “exposition” section, as with the “content” section, it is up to you how fine-grained your comments are. For organisational issues, it would be reasonable to list your concerns and either suggest alternatives or leave it to the authors to address. For obvious writing errors, you could mention some major recurring errors, and leave it to the authors to detect where these have occurred. Once, as a much younger person with much more time on my hands, feeling guilty about not recommending a paper for publication written by friends of mine, I listed every single language error I found — I would not recommend doing this in general.

4. Consider making constructive comments about both content and exposition even if you do not recommend the paper for publication, to ease a future refereeing process.

5. Don’t equate “native speaker” with “competent writer and expositor”. Instead of writing “Please consult a native speaker before resubmitting” consider writing “Please correct the errors in language before resubmitting”, ideally having pointed some out. The first assumes that the authors are not native speakers as well as that any arbitrary native speakers could/would have written better. The second centres the actual issues you have detected with the paper and provides specific examples of what you would like changed.

6. As mentioned in the other answers and comments, be kind. Consider being especially kind to early career colleagues and to those who may already feel isolated within academia.