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- Reviewing a journal article with clarity and politeness: key language tips for non-native English-speaking reviewers
- Yunhee Whang
- Sci Ed. 2020;7(2):204-208. Published online August 20, 2020
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.6087/kcse.220
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- 3 Web of Science
- 3 Crossref
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Abstract
PDF - One of the important responsibilities of peer review in academic publishing is to help authors improve the quality of their manuscripts by providing clear, constructive comments that are neither unpleasant nor disparaging. However, non-native English-speaking reviewers sometimes have difficulties in complementing or criticizing with clarity. It can also be difficult for reviewers to write appropriate and inter-culturally sensitive reviews. Thus, the goal of this paper is to help reviewers (and authors) improve clarity and achieve politeness in their writing. This paper focuses on understanding information structure (how information is generally arranged in a given context), cohesion (how ideas or sentences are connected), and emphasis (how to control emphasis with sentence structure or linguistic devices); it also introduces various politeness strategies for writing compliments and mitigating criticisms. The specific strategies include the use of conditionals, hedging, and pairing good news and bad news. Examples of effective and ineffective reviewer comments and cases of potential miscommunication that might occur between reviewers and authors are also presented. Developing skills to write peer review comments more clearly and politely enhances communication between reviewers and authors, which in turn further improves the journal’s overall quality.
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Citations
Citations to this article as recorded by
- Ten Tips for Performing Your First Peer Review: The Next Step for the Aspiring Academic Plastic Surgeon
Martin Frendø, Andreas Frithioff, Steven Arild Wuyts Andersen
Archives of Plastic Surgery.2022; 49(04): 538. CrossRef - Ethics and Responsibilities of Peer Reviewers to the Authors, Readers, and Editors
Seung-Kee Min
Vascular Specialist International.2021; 37(1): 1. CrossRef - Peer review guidance: a primer for researchers
Olena Zimba, Armen Gasparyan
Rheumatology.2021; 59(1): 3. CrossRef
- Ten Tips for Performing Your First Peer Review: The Next Step for the Aspiring Academic Plastic Surgeon
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