50度灰

Presenting your work in English鈥攅ven if it is not your first language鈥攇reatly increases the audience for your research. When you write and publish in English, you get access to nearly the entire world of research.

But for non-native speakers, writing in English is much easier said than done. Because English is in essence a mash-up of Germanic and Romance languages, the rules can seem contradictory, and the vocabulary balloons in size.

So to help a little, here are a few tips to help improve your written English in your manuscripts

1. Use simpler words. Except for where you have to use words specific to your field and your experiment, you should try to use simpler words. For example, you would write, 鈥淧erson A ran faster than Person B;鈥� rather than, 鈥淧erson A鈥檚 velocity exceeded that of Person B.鈥�
2. Use the active鈥攔ather than the passive鈥攙oice. This means that you should, in most cases, structure your sentences so that the subject is clearly and directly taking the sentence鈥檚 action. For example, 鈥淧erson C ran the experiment;鈥� rather than, 鈥淭he experiment was run by Person C.鈥� The first example is active voice; the second is passive voice. You can often tell if your sentence is in the passive voice if you can add, 鈥渂y Person C鈥� at the end. Just like in the example above鈥攜ou might sometimes see it as, 鈥淭he experiment was run,鈥� and you can tell its passive voice because you can add the phrase, 鈥渂y Person C鈥� at the end. 
3. Use comparisons properly. Comparisons are frequently made in the Results section of papers. These often involve the words 鈥渂etween,鈥� 鈥渁mong,鈥� 鈥渓ike,鈥� 鈥渨ith,鈥� and 鈥渢han.鈥� When making comparisons, avoid being vague, and be as specific as possible. For example, you can say, 鈥淩eactions with the new machine were faster than with the old machine.鈥� This comparison makes clear that you鈥檙e comparing a new piece of equipment with an older one, as opposed to leaving the comparison hanging and vague. 
4. Subject and verb placement. Readers expect the verb, a word that describes an action, in a sentence to be near the subject of that sentence. However, some authors tend to insert a lot of text that describes the subject between the subject and verb. In these cases, when the reader reaches the verb, they can forget what the subject was. They will then have to go back to the beginning of the sentence for clarification. Your reader should only have to read your writing once to understand your ideas. To improve the readability of your manuscript, keep subjects and verbs close together in your sentences. For example: The patient鈥檚 liver readings [s] had increased [v] by 50% at 48 hours after exposure to the virus.

These tips and suggestions should help you get started.

But to learn more about how to prepare for your next article submission, you can take Springe Nature鈥檚 free online tutorial (registration required), 鈥�Writing a journal manuscript.鈥� You can also explore more resources at and at .

Best of luck with your next manuscript!