ArticlePLoS biology2023
The manifold costs of being a non-native English speaker in science.
Article in PLoS biology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 106 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
106 citing papers in PubMed.
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- Global Trends in Heart Failure Self-Care Research: A Bibliometric and Visual Analysis.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Why primatology needs local knowledge.Primates; journal of primatology · 2026Article
- Beyond the silos: A global evidence synthesis of biodiversity, water, food, health and climate nexus interactions.iScience · 2026Review
- Latin America's missing voice in sexual medicine: a call to confront an invisible inequity.International journal of impotence research · 2026Review
- English or Perish? The Value of Linguistic Capital in the Social Sciences and Humanities.Sociology · 2026Article
- Into the unknown: a literature review of helminths of amphibians and reptiles in Mesoamerica.Parasites & vectors · 2026Review
- Generative Artificial Intelligence for Empowering Non-Native English Speakers in Verbal Scientific Communication and Dissemination.Korean journal of radiology · 2026Article
- Agentic Artificial Intelligence for the Automated Generation of Accurate Summary Podcasts of Radiology Research Papers.Korean journal of radiology · 2026Article
- An automated decision-making procedure for ranking and selecting species in biodiversity projects.npj biodiversity · 2026Article
- Invest where impact begins: recommendations from Breast Cancer Research Foundation Early Career Investigator Working Group (Part 1 of 2).NPJ breast cancer · 2026Article
- Article
- Building research capacity in the global south: insights from a scientific writing workshop.BMC medical education · 2026Article
- Building contextually-relevant training programs for scientific development: process and lessons learned in implementing two iterations of a faculty enrichment program in applied malaria modeling.Malaria journal · 2026Article
- Disclosing artificial intelligence use in scientific research and publication: When should disclosure be mandatory, optional, or unnecessary?Accountability in research · 2026Article
- AI-assisted peer review: efficiency for reviewers, burden for authors-a narrative review.Frontiers in artificial intelligence · 2026Review
- AI in transplantation: levelling the playing field and raising the methodological standards.Transplant international : official journal of the European Society for Organ Transplantation · 2026Article
- Biomedical and life science articles by female researchers spend longer under review.PLoS biology · 2026Article
46 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The use of English as the common language of science represents a major impediment to maximising the contribution of non-native English speakers to science. Yet few studies have quantified the consequences of language barriers on the career development of researchers who are non-native English speakers. By surveying 908 researchers in environmental sciences, this study estimates and compares the amount of effort required to conduct scientific activities in English between researchers from different countries and, thus, different linguistic and economic backgrounds. Our survey demonstrates that non-native English speakers, especially early in their careers, spend more effort than native English speakers in conducting scientific activities, from reading and writing papers and preparing presentations in English, to disseminating research in multiple languages. Language barriers can also cause them not to attend, or give oral presentations at, international conferences conducted in English. We urge scientific communities to recognise and tackle these disadvantages to release the untapped potential of non-native English speakers in science. This study also proposes potential solutions that can be implemented today by individuals, institutions, journals, funders, and conferences. Please see the Supporting information files (S2-S6 Text) for Alternative Language Abstracts and Figs 5 and 6.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.