ArticleJournal of English for academic purposes2020
Preliminary evidence of linguistic bias in academic reviewing.
Article in Journal of English for academic purposes, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cleft Lip and Palate Publishing Trends From Authors in Low- and Middle-Income Countries in Cleft and Craniofacial Journals.The Cleft palate-craniofacial journal : official publication of the American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association · 2026Article
- Perceptions of Arab researchers regarding publishing scientific research: A cross-sectional study.Accountability in research · 2026Article
- Linguistic bias and the hidden costs of science lost in translation.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2026Article
- Article
- On the importance of communication, advocacy, and information accuracy in destigmatizing mpox disease.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Gender and geographical bias in the editorial decision-making process of biomedical journals: a case-control study.BMJ evidence-based medicine · 2025Article
- Tips and tricks for writing constructive peer reviews.Conservation physiology · 2025Article
- Article
- Artificial intelligence: The researcher's assistant or sheep in wolf's clothing?United European gastroenterology journal · 2024Article
- How to write an effective journal peer review using a staged writing approach: a best-practice guide for early-career researchers.International journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Arise robot overlords! A synergy of artificial intelligence in the evolution of scientific writing and publishing.Pediatric research · 2024Article
- The diversity of ignorance and the ignorance of diversity: origins and implications of "shadow diversity" for conservation biology and extinction.Cambridge prisms. Extinction · 2024Review
- The role of contextual factors in avenues to recover from gambling disorder: a scoping review.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Science over language: a plea to consider language bias in scientific publishing.Critical care science · 2024Article
- The silent struggle: experiences of non-native English-speaking psychology students.Australian journal of psychology · 2024Article
- Peer-reviewed publications in orthopaedic surgery from lower income countries: A comparative analysis.SICOT-J · 2024Article
- A role for artificial intelligence chatbots in the writing of scientific articles.American journal of obstetrics and gynecology · 2023Article
- The manifold costs of being a non-native English speaker in science.PLoS biology · 2023Article
- Growth of non-English-language literature on biodiversity conservation.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2022Article
- Inequity in Peer Review in Communication Sciences and Disorders.American journal of speech-language pathology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Recent years have seen a spirited debate over whether there is linguistic injustice in academic publishing. One way that linguistic injustice might occur is if gatekeepers (e.g., peer reviewers and editors) judge the scholarly quality of academic writing more harshly if the writing does not meet expectations for international academic English, even if the content is good. We tested this with a randomized control study in which scholars judged the scientific quality of several scientific abstracts. Each abstract had two versions with identical scientific content, such that the language in one version conformed to standards for international academic English, and the language in the other version did not (but was still comprehensible). While the data are preliminary and the effects statistically inconclusive, both pre-registered and exploratory analyses of the data suggest that scholars may give abstracts lower ratings of scientific quality when the writing does not conform to standards of international academic English. These results suggest that linguistic bias may occur in academic peer reviewing and motivate further study to better understand and address this phenomenon.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.