2012-08-25  

Academic English on the “Sentence Level”

In spite of high scientific quality, academic manuscripts sometimes do not survive the peer review process just because they are written in broken English. Therefore, researchers should conceal from their reviewers that they are non-native speakers. For sure, a traditional dictionary is an essential tool on the “word level”. But, a combination of correctly spelled words is not sufficient on the “sentence level”. Therefore, I would like to recommend Linguee to you, which was launched by a Cologne-based start-up company in 2009. “Linguee is a unique translation tool combining an editorial dictionary and a search engine with which you can search through hundreds of millions of bilingual texts for words and expressions.” Currently, Linguee contains English translations of texts in French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish, which are usually, yet not always, reliable. Linguee helps both on the word and sentence level. I am sure you do not want to miss it any more.

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About Andreas Wieland

Andreas Wieland is an Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management at Copenhagen Business School. His current research interests include resilient and socially responsible supply chains.

4 responses to “Academic English on the “Sentence Level””

  1. Mark Barratt says :

    Andreas
    Good post – I see this a lot with manuscripts up for review in many of the more international journals. However, I have seen a lot less with journals such as the Journal of Operations Management, but this may simply due to many more desk rejects in JOM.

    As a reviewer, when you see 30-40 spelling mistakes on the first page, I must admit that this does compromise one’s objectivity, especially if you are being thorough.

    I would always recommend using a proof reader. The cost is a wise investment, and considering the pressure to publish makes sense. Myself and my co-authors have ourselves started using proof readers, and it is surprising how many issues they uncover.

    Regards
    Mark

    Reply
  2. Andreas Wieland says :

    Mark,

    I definitely agree. After having spent hundreds of expensive working hours, it would be a false economy not to have a manuscript proofread before submitting it to a journal, particularly if English is not the native language.

    Best regards,
    Andreas

    Reply

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