Why good technical English is essential for journal papers

The purpose of this blog posting is to explain to prospective Minerals Engineering journal authors why I am particularly fastidious about the quality of English in submitted papers.

Peer-reviewed journals such as Minerals Engineering require not only high standards of science in their papers, but also high quality technical English, as poor English often creates ambiguities, which may not be apparent to those with English as their first language.

Technical English is basically simplified English, designed to reduce ambiguities and to increase comprehension for those whose first language is not English. Good technical English should use short sentences and paragraphs and must avoid slang and colloquialisms. It should present material in an easy and clear way.

There are many pitfalls, however. English is an immensely complex language and many very similar words have very different meanings. Even among first language English speakers there is often confusion regarding the noun ‘effect’ and the verb ‘affect’ and even reputable newspapers often mistakenly use the noun ‘dependant’ in phrases such as ‘...is dependent on...’.

Even more confusing to non-English speaking authors is that many words sound the same but have very different meanings, such that reliance totally on automatic spell-checkers is never an ideal option. Take the simple sentence “Could you be here in four days?” for instance. This makes sense and passes the spell-checker, but so does “Cud ewe bee hear inn fore daze” which sounds the same, but makes no sense at all.

One of the most overlooked aspects of good technical English, but one which often causes the greatest degree of ambiguity, is punctuation. There is a trend in literature to dispense with punctuation, but this must be avoided with technical English, as what appears to be obvious to an English speaker may not be so to one who does not have English as his/her mother tongue. For instance the sign, seen on many of our local beaches ‘No dogs please’ is implicitly understood – it is a request to keep your dogs off the beach. In fact it is a statement that all dogs are disagreeable, ‘please’ in this case being a verb! The addition of a comma, ‘No dogs, please’ totally changes the meaning into the familiar request.

It is difficult to believe that a book on punctuation could prove to be an entertaining best seller, but “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” by Lynne Truss became just that, while showing that punctuation really does matter. The title refers to a panda, which walks into a restaurant. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air, before leaving. When the waiter asks why he did it, the panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and points at a relevant entry: “Panda. Large black and white mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”

There are many examples in the book of ambiguities caused by poor punctuation. The comma is often a culprit, but so is the apostrophe, one of the most misused punctuation marks in the language. “Residents’ refuse to be put in bins”, meaning that the rubbish produced by residents is to be disposed of in bins, takes on a completely different meaning if the apostrophe is omitted, refuse becoming a verb rather than an noun, and the sentence stating that the residents are refusing to be put in bins!

So, what I am basically saying is that if I ask you to improve the English in your paper, I am not just being pedantic. There is a real reason for this and I ask all non-English speaking authors to seek the advice of a colleague or contact, whose first language is English, who may be able to assist in editing the paper before submission.