Is the English language a barrier to the non-English-speaking authors in academic publishing?

Abstract

Academic publication in scientific journals is an integral part of a clinician's professional journey. Writing a publishable scientific article can be a formidable task for a beginner and to even some established academics. It is a challenging but rewarding endeavour. Apart from being desirable criteria on speciality training application forms, generating an idea for an article into a well-written manuscript, struggling through multiple draft revisions, submission, receiving peer-review feedback and acceptance, strengthens our methodology, writing and communication skills. It prepares a clinician to critically interpret the published literature, an essential skill for all physicians, as evidence-based medicine is the backbone of clinical practice. It also enhances knowledge on recent advances and management options about a particular condition which can then be applied in the care of patients.1 The DIAzePAM (Difficultés des Auteurs à la Publication d'Articles Médicaux) French survey highlights difficulties experienced by researchers preparing articles for biomedical journals.2 One of the main limiting factors found in the study has been limited skills in English writing and editing. Apart from other reasons for publication bias, poor use of English is also cited as a reason for the rejection of submitted articles.3 This does not appear surprising since 90% of international journals are published in the English language. Analysis of 70 orthopaedic journals indexed in Medline assessing the country of origin of publications showed 50% of journals were published in the US, 40% in the UK and only 10% from the East and Latin America.4 This over-representation of UK-English-based and US-English-based publications in the literature may be one of the reasons for language bias and subsequent rejection of a manuscript from non-English practising authors.5

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