Native English Editor – This blog entry is addressed to scientific and medical professionals that are from non-English speaking backgrounds.
Have you noticed how difficult it is to publish your research work in professional journals? This is especially true for those from communities that does not speak the English language at all. It makes publishing research findings a real challenge.
This matter was brought up not long ago at an international workshop on “How to write research manuscripts for publication” by someone who is a native English-speaking scientist.
The Chairman of the workshop session, a well-known editor of a very high impact journal; himself a prominent Englishman, admitted that such issues exists.
What’s more, most professional journals now require that manuscripts are edited by native English speakers before the manuscript can be accepted for publication.
More issues affecting non-English speaking authors abound and need be brought to the surface and debated.
In the “Publish or Perish” scenario non-English speaking authors are often confronted with almost insurmountable odds when trying to get published.
Affected authors whose work were rejected oftentimes just do not publish their work due to the obstacles they would encounter if they persisted.
In particular those not bound to the “Publish or Perish” rule may not bother to re-submit their work for publication if their work is rejected .
Not surprisingly therefore a significant number of authors from non-English speaking background do not get their work published at all. As result of which their findings are lost to the scientific community.
How can we overcome this thorny debacle? Anyone care to comment and carry the discussion to the next level?”
