Addressing the “Bias Gap”: A Research-Driven Argument for Critical Support of Plurilingual Scientists’ Research Writing

Abstract

This article outlines findings from a case study investigating attitudes toward English as the dominant language of scientific research writing. Survey and interview data were collected from 55 Latin American health and life scientists and 7 North American scientific journal editors connected to an intensive scholarly writing for publication course. Study findings point to competing perceptions (scientists vs. editors) of fairness in the adjudication of Latin American scientists’ research at international scientific journals. Adopting a critical, plurilingual lens, I argue that these findings demand a space for more equity-driven pedagogies, policies, and reflective practices aimed at supporting the robust participation of plurilingual scientists who use English as an additional language (EAL). In particular, if equity is indeed a shared goal, there is a clear need for commitment to ongoing critical self-reflection on the part of scientific journal gatekeepers and research writing support specialists.

Teaching and Researching Genre Knowledge: Toward an Enhanced Theoretical Framework

“…Even if we restrict our focus to literacy and, more narrowly, to academic writing, bi/multiliteracy would appear to the norm rather than the exception. Indeed, as academic journals have decidedly taken an Anglophone orientation, researchers worldwide face great pressure to publish in English as an additional language (Corcoran, 2019; Curry & Lillis, 2017). Third, as applied linguists and language teachers ourselves, we have a particular interest in how our students’ multilingual genre repertoires may contribute to their developing understanding of genre(s) and also how we can support continued expansion of those repertoires.…”

“There’s No Discrimination, These Are Just the Rules of the Game”: Russian Scholars’ Perception of the Research Writing and Publication Process in English

“…He also mentioned that their writing could be influenced by their L1 (p. 243). Since then, the idea of the 'linguistic injustice' that multilingual scholars experience in the process of writing and publishing their research has been developed in many studies reporting that the scholars feel inequality compared to native speakers [33][34][35][36][37][38][39]. Even in the titles of publications, the authors stress difficulties [40,41] or treat writing research in L2 as a 'burden' [42].…”

Post-PhD Researchers’ Trajectories and Networking: The Mediating Role of Writing Conceptions

“…In this sense, this study highlights that regardless of the writing profile and language proficiency writing for publication is always challenging (Casanave, 2019; Phillips, 2017); therefore, early-career researchers need specific and continuous institutional support and training related to writing and networking. In our local context and, to our knowledge, also in other (semi-)periphery contexts, there are only a few initiatives (Bazerman et al, 2012; Corcoran, 2019; Corcoran & Englander, 2016), and institutional training addressed to post-PhD researchers is almost nonexistent. Reasons explaining this situation are multiple and range from lack of awareness of researchers’ difficulties to the tradition of underinvesting on researcher career development.…”