Preliminary evidence of linguistic bias in academic reviewing

Abstract

Recent years have seen a spirited debate over whether there is linguistic injustice in academic publishing. One way that linguistic injustice might occur is if gatekeepers (e.g., peer reviewers and editors) judge the scholarly quality of academic writing more harshly if the writing does not meet expectations for international academic English, even if the content is good. We tested this with a randomized control study in which scholars judged the scientific quality of several scientific abstracts. Each abstract had two versions with identical scientific content, such that the language in one version conformed to standards for international academic English, and the language in the other version did not (but was still comprehensible). While the data are preliminary and the effects statistically inconclusive, both pre-registered and exploratory analyses of the data suggest that scholars may give abstracts lower ratings of scientific quality when the writing does not conform to standards of international academic English. These results suggest that linguistic bias may occur in academic peer reviewing and motivate further study to better understand and address this phenomenon.

Inequity in peer review in communication sciences and disorders

“…The managing editor removed a manuscript from the submission pool and informed the author that they must have someone who uses English as a first language edit their manuscript before resubmitting; it was unclear if they actually read the manuscript or removed it before even looking at it. Although judging scientific quality by perceptions of English as a first versus additional language status is problematic itself and constitutes linguistic bias (Politzer-Ahles et al, 2020), (IN)EQUITY IN PEER REVIEW IN CSD 17 the editor in this case seemed to make assumptions about language status and race/ethnicity based on the author's name. In all, intersecting identities may give rise to multiple marginalization and exacerbate racialized outcomes in peer review.…”

“…BIPOC face myriad challenges in publishing and advancing in academic careers. At a fundamental level, reviewer and editor biases about author identities or the communities with which they work may lead to the perception that the work of BIPOC authors is of lower quality than their white peers (King et al, 2018;Politzer-Ahles et al, 2020). Other challenges for BIPOC faculty, which are beyond the scope of this report, include:…”

What Makes Writing Academic

“…A standardized monoliteracy culture, that conveniently also happens to be the literacy of the dominant universities, is likely to orient 'knowledge workers' on the peripheries of the academic 'metropole' towards a dependency on the 'techniques' of the dominant elites. These techniques include academic writing practices that favour norms shown to be unjust and exclusionary (Lillis & Curry, 2010a;Politzer-Ahles et al, 2016), such as publication bias (Politzer-Ahles et al, 2020).…”

Scientific Publishing in Biomedicine: Revising a Peer-reviewed Manuscript

“…Although some preliminary evidence indicates that there are or could be linguistic bias issues in academic reviewing (23), native English speakers may criticize the language because it does not sound natural to them. In that case, the manuscript should be carefully revised by the authors.…”