Confused and misused: English under attack in scientific literature.

Why another discussion of the need for quality English in learned-science writing? There are numerous handbooks, manuals and style guides covering every aspect of English usage for scientific purposes. The leading texts are reissued regularly, and new guides are brought out nearly every year. There is no shortage of dictionaries, some of which have become classic reference works of our time. Is it justified to tackle the subject again, in a journal article? The answer is a definite yes. Journals remain the primary source of information for scientists, who are chronically pressed for time and seldom read books published in fields outside their own. In addition, careless writing is not a dead issue [4, 5]. The ‘‘publish or perish’’ principle forces scientists to produce more and more papers with scant regard to the cosmetics of presentation. Indeed, many scientists are reluctant to develop even their mother-tongue writing skills. ‘‘The better is the enemy of the well,’’ they often quote from Voltaire, to mean that ‘‘slight deficiencies’’ in form should be no bar to readers’ appreciation of science content. Ultimately, the question remains: will a text containing language flaws be appreciated? As Luttikhuizen [12] remarks, ‘‘By underestimating the time and effort you put into your writing, you are in a sense underestimating your research.’’ This article, organized as a ‘‘quick guide’’ to idiomatic English writing, is focused on the use and misuse of English in the major scientific literature.