Academic Writing Tips for ESL Researchers

Research on ESL academic writing has identified consistent patterns of errors across language backgrounds:

Article misuse

incorrect or missing use of 'a', 'an', and 'the', the single most common ESL error

Preposition errors

'study of' vs 'study on', 'associated with' vs 'associated to'

Calque constructions

word-for-word translations that produce non-idiomatic English

Verb form errors

incorrect use of gerunds vs infinitives

Tense inconsistencies

mixing past and present tense incorrectly across sections

Overlong sentences

complex ideas packed into unwieldy 60-word sentences

Awkward compound nouns

'blood pressure measurement technique improvement study'

Academic writing requires appropriate hedging, which is language that signals the degree of certainty of your claims. ESL researchers often either over-hedge (sounding uncertain about everything) or under-hedge (making claims too strongly). Standard hedging expressions include 'may suggest', 'appears to indicate', 'is consistent with', 'potentially', 'to our knowledge'. Match your hedging language to your evidence quality.

English articles (a, an, the) present the greatest difficulty for speakers of languages without articles (Asian languages, Russian, Arabic, Turkish). The basic rule: use 'the' for specific/known items; use 'a/an' for introducing new/general items. Reading extensively in your target journal and noting article patterns is one of the most effective ways to develop article intuition. CheckMyManuscript's language checker specifically flags article patterns.

Proven strategies for ESL researchers:

Read extensively in your field in English, especially papers in your target journal

Use academic phrase banks (e.g., the Academic Phrasebank from the University of Manchester)

Have a native English-speaking colleague review your manuscript

Use grammar checking tools (Grammarly, ProWritingAid) as an additional layer

Consider professional English editing (Scribbr, AJE) for your highest-stakes submissions

Use CheckMyManuscript to validate structure and compliance after language editing

Many journals (especially Nature family, Elsevier, and JAMA journals) will accept a scientifically strong paper with language issues and request professional editing before acceptance. The cover letter can acknowledge English as a second language. Some publishers (Elsevier, Springer) offer author language services at journal submission. Journals rarely reject papers solely on language if the science is clearly communicated.