3 ms·

> There's no way the "91% more time to read papers" figure applies equally to the median Chinese and median Indian scientist. I'm also kind of shocked at the i

by JadeNB 3y ago

> There's no way the "91% more time to read papers" figure applies equally to the median Chinese and median Indian scientist. I'm also kind of shocked at the idea that language barriers cause greater barriers to reading a paper (91% time increase) than to writing one (51%) in a non-native language. > That said, this article and paper don't really seem to provide any kind of solution, they just identify a problem. I don't really see what the scientific community can do about it? Guessing at the authors' motivations—for me, although it's obvious in retrospect, if you had asked me yesterday "what are some barriers to non-native speakers of English entering the sciences?", I wouldn't necessarily have thought of the extra time to read and write papers, and just this spreading of awareness is a reasonable end in itself. Beyond that, I think part of the point is to de-externalize the cost. Currently, native English speakers bear, or at least know that they are bearing, little to none of the cost of the difficulty others have accessing their work, and I think the hope is to force people to think consciously about what they could do. For example, in math, at least, there are journals and series that publish translations of non-English works into English, but I know of few that work the other way; that could be a major good, even if it is a daunting undertaking. If that's too much—as it surely is as an immediate solution—one thing that occurs to me is that perhaps there could be some sort of training for scientific writers in how to write more accessible English—where jargon is OK (since it's to be read by specialists), but "advanced" English constructs should be avoided when possible. tetris11 mentions elsethread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36787311 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36787311) that Nature apparently does something like this.

CrazyStat 3y ago
> I'm also kind of shocked at the idea that language barriers cause greater barriers to reading a paper (91% time increase) than to writing one (51%) in a non-native language. This actually makes sense to me. Reading a paper takes time on the scale of hours, and having to stop to parse difficult sentences or look up unfamiliar words can add to that substantially. Writing a paper takes time on the scale of weeks to months, and there's a lot that goes into it other than putting words down on paper. Making figures, figuring out how to argue a certain point, thinking about what examples to provide to best illustrate what you're trying to get across--these are big parts of the writing process that are more or less language agnostic in the sense that the time-intensive part can be carried out in the writer's native language and the result translated into English. If I were to try to read a paper in my field in Russian (a language I have a decent but far from fluent grasp on, and I don't know the jargon of my field) I would expect it to take at least twice as long as reading it in English. Translating one of my papers into Russian would take a long time, but it would not double the total time spent on writing the paper.
pvaldes 3y ago
>I'm also kind of shocked at the idea that language cause greater barriers to reading a paper than to writing one in a non-native language. When writing people needs just a small subset of the language. Lets say that with the 10% of the language you can express most ideas in a simple way, and be understood. When you read you face a different subset, maybe a much more wide vocabulary, a lot of phrasal verbs, not familiar constructions, local jargon or ambiguous cultural context... plus the research theme, that can be difficult to grasp by itself. A funny and not uncommon fact when you are in an international congress is to find that everybody understands the other, until the English native researcher starts to speak. Journals often look for this symptoms as a seal of quality, but it is not. The sad fact is that speaking English well doesn't made you an expert on science, or a genius, you are just an English-native.
- JadeNB 3y ago
  > When writing people needs just a small subset of the language. Lets say that with the 10% of the language you can express most ideas in a simple way, and be understood. When you read you face a different subset, maybe a much more wide vocabulary, a lot of phrasal verbs, not familiar constructions, local jargon or ambiguous cultural context... plus the research theme, that can be difficult to grasp by itself. Good point (although the last issue surely faces a reader of any linguistic background, it can doubtless be complicated by the others). > Journals often look for this symptoms as a seal of quality, but it is not. I'm not sure I understand—what are journals looking for?

by JadeNB 3y ago

CrazyStat 3y ago

> I'm also kind of shocked at the idea that language barriers cause greater barriers to reading a paper (91% time increase) than to writing one (51%) in a non-native language. This actually makes sense to me. Reading a paper takes time on the scale of hours, and having to stop to parse difficult sentences or look up unfamiliar words can add to that substantially. Writing a paper takes time on the scale of weeks to months, and there's a lot that goes into it other than putting words down on paper. Making figures, figuring out how to argue a certain point, thinking about what examples to provide to best illustrate what you're trying to get across--these are big parts of the writing process that are more or less language agnostic in the sense that the time-intensive part can be carried out in the writer's native language and the result translated into English. If I were to try to read a paper in my field in Russian (a language I have a decent but far from fluent grasp on, and I don't know the jargon of my field) I would expect it to take at least twice as long as reading it in English. Translating one of my papers into Russian would take a long time, but it would not double the total time spent on writing the paper.

pvaldes 3y ago

>I'm also kind of shocked at the idea that language cause greater barriers to reading a paper than to writing one in a non-native language. When writing people needs just a small subset of the language. Lets say that with the 10% of the language you can express most ideas in a simple way, and be understood. When you read you face a different subset, maybe a much more wide vocabulary, a lot of phrasal verbs, not familiar constructions, local jargon or ambiguous cultural context... plus the research theme, that can be difficult to grasp by itself. A funny and not uncommon fact when you are in an international congress is to find that everybody understands the other, until the English native researcher starts to speak. Journals often look for this symptoms as a seal of quality, but it is not. The sad fact is that speaking English well doesn't made you an expert on science, or a genius, you are just an English-native.

JadeNB 3y ago
> When writing people needs just a small subset of the language. Lets say that with the 10% of the language you can express most ideas in a simple way, and be understood. When you read you face a different subset, maybe a much more wide vocabulary, a lot of phrasal verbs, not familiar constructions, local jargon or ambiguous cultural context... plus the research theme, that can be difficult to grasp by itself. Good point (although the last issue surely faces a reader of any linguistic background, it can doubtless be complicated by the others). > Journals often look for this symptoms as a seal of quality, but it is not. I'm not sure I understand—what are journals looking for?