Johannes Eble wrote:> On Tue, 04 May 2004 12:14:22 -0400, Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> wrote: > > > >>Harumph! I'd be overjoyed if my German were half as good as your >>English. > > > Thanks for the compliment. On the other hand, I am sure that your > English is better than my German. ;)I guessed wrong about your language.>>I wrote about an English-language journal that presumably has >>English-speaking editors. Of course, foreigners get more slack. > > > If a journal is in English, this doesn't neccessarily mean that the > editors are English-speaking. Take for example IEEE Journal. I would > say it is international.It does mean that the editorial staff should -- and does -- have an excellent command of English. One of an editor's tasks making sure that articles are grammatical and unambiguous, altering them if needed.> Sorry for my rude attack, but your answer reminded me of a problem > some of my collegues had with IEEE when we were at university. Their > papers got rejected several times only because their English was not > perfect. It is fine to require the paper in English, but it is unfair > to require a perfect English. But this is about 7 years ago and I > don't know how it is today.If their material was good, the staff should have offered to work with them in rewriting it. It is not unusual. (Perhaps if the material had been exciting enough, the staff would have.)>>Which >>non-Anglophone native would you have liked me to hold to lower editorial >>standards? > > > I am not sure if I understand this sentence, but it would have been > fine if you just suggested him to use 'fewer' instead of 'less' in > order to raise his editorial standards.The editor allowed 'less' where 'fewer' was required and I faulted him for that. I had no opportunity to review the paper or title before it was posted. I don't even know who the editor is. What we can all see from his work is that, whether excusably or not, he (or she) is not entirely competent.> JohannesJerry -- Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. �����������������������������������������������������������������������
Journal of Circuits, Systems and Computers - Vol 13 No 1
Started by ●April 30, 2004
Reply by ●May 4, 20042004-05-04
Reply by ●May 4, 20042004-05-04
Johannes Eble <skywalkerpackage@hotmail.com> writes:> Sorry for my rude attack, but your answer reminded me of a problem > some of my collegues had with IEEE when we were at university. Their > papers got rejected several times only because their English was not > perfect. It is fine to require the paper in English, but it is unfair > to require a perfect English. But this is about 7 years ago and I > don't know how it is today.In my experience, IEEE manuscripts written by native English speakers contain English that is just as good or bad as the non-native English speakers. The mistakes made by each group are different. As a reviewer, I do not tend to use spelling and grammar as reasons for rejection. They CAN, however, be indicative of sloppy thinking... which shows up in the ideas that are trying to be presented, which in turn means the manuscript is not worth publishing. Ciao, Peter K. -- Peter J. Kootsookos "I will ignore all ideas for new works [..], the invention of which has reached its limits and for whose improvement I see no further hope." - Julius Frontinus, c. AD 84
Reply by ●May 5, 20042004-05-05
Typical IEEE flow for Transactions and Journals sends three anonymous referees the manuscript with IEEE rating forms that include a yes-no question "Is the English Satisfactory?" and request the reviewers to mark corrections on the manuscript if possible. (I got the first of these 24 years ago, returned the most recent one a couple of weeks ago.) If the issue editor rejects a refereed ms. because of language, that will normally reflect the ratings by the referees. Every publication has some expectation of the level of language quality and not all authors (whether native writers or not) will be happy if their submission misses that standard. (It has little to do in reality with "perfect.") Some recent replies may not have read my earlier one (or maybe my language was unsatisfactory :-) because I continue to see what look to me like expressions of misconception that IEEE archival publications have professional language editors to tune up submissions or "work with" authors in rewrites -- that is how commercial publications operate, not archival scholarly nonprofit ones like IEEE's.
Reply by ●May 5, 20042004-05-05
Max Hauser wrote: ...> Some recent replies may not have read my earlier one (or maybe my language > was unsatisfactory :-) because I continue to see what look to me like > expressions of misconception that IEEE archival publications have > professional language editors to tune up submissions or "work with" authors > in rewrites -- that is how commercial publications operate, not archival > scholarly nonprofit ones like IEEE's.I missed that. It's a shame, in the literal sense. There are probably enough people willing to volunteer their time so that using them ought to be considered. My original point was about "less" and "fewer" in an article's title. Surely, an editor has enough time to look after titles! Not doing so raises the question of whether the ability is there. Jerry -- Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. �����������������������������������������������������������������������
Reply by ●May 5, 20042004-05-05
Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> writes:> My original point was about "less" and "fewer" in an article's title. > Surely, an editor has enough time to look after titles! Not doing so > raises the question of whether the ability is there.Jerry, One of the hardest things for a reviewer to get an author to change is the title of their beloved manuscript. Ciao, Peter K. -- Peter J. Kootsookos "I will ignore all ideas for new works [..], the invention of which has reached its limits and for whose improvement I see no further hope." - Julius Frontinus, c. AD 84
Reply by ●May 5, 20042004-05-05
On Tue, 4 May 2004 11:56:07 -0700, "Jon Harris" <goldentully@hotmail.com> wrote:>"Johannes Eble" <skywalkerpackage@hotmail.com> wrote in message >news:hqdf909e79v1jaupgiaq8qgth0nupboftf@4ax.com... >> On Tue, 04 May 2004 12:14:22 -0400, Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> wrote: >> >> >I wrote about an English-language journal that presumably has >> >English-speaking editors. Of course, foreigners get more slack. >> >> If a journal is in English, this doesn't neccessarily mean that the >> editors are English-speaking. Take for example IEEE Journal. I would >> say it is international. >> >> Sorry for my rude attack, but your answer reminded me of a problem >> some of my collegues had with IEEE when we were at university. Their >> papers got rejected several times only because their English was not >> perfect. It is fine to require the paper in English, but it is unfair >> to require a perfect English. But this is about 7 years ago and I >> don't know how it is today. > >If the technical content was deserving, I think the editors should have >corrected the grammar and published the paper rather than rejecting it. That's >what editors are for, right? On the other hand, if the English was so bad that >the editors couldn't understand the technical content well enough to evaluate, >that would be grounds for rejection IMO. > >For your friends, I'd suggest trying to find someone with strong English/writing >skills (native speaker preferably) to proof their papers before submitting. I >do that, even though I am a native speaker. Of course, that might be easier >said than done in a non-English-speaking country! >Hi Jon, I agree with you. Editors should do what they can to make an article "readable". However, if the language (grammar) is so bad that the editor can't understand the technical content, then the article should be rejected. If I tried to write an article for a German magazine, I'd certainly get a native German engineer to review my material before submitting it for publication. If a native-language review is not done, we end up with articles like the guys who wrote in an IEEE publication about periodic sampling and said that some process results in a, and I quote, "spectrum having an indifferent disposition." (!!) It's not realistic to expect a magazine written in some language to publish your article if you can't communicate well in that language. [-Rick-]
Reply by ●May 6, 20042004-05-06
"Rick Lyons" :> . . . If I tried to write an article for a German > magazine, I'd certainly get a native German > engineer to review my material(I can endorse the suggestion.)> If a native-language review is not done, we end up > with articles like the guys who wrote in an IEEE > publication about periodic sampling and said that > some process results in a, and I quote, "spectrum > having an indifferent disposition." (!!)(I like that! Better than a mean disposition!) I wonder if you saw the manuscript around 1979 (done without native review) dubbing an LPC / MEM variant as Auto Regressive Spectrum Estimation. With acronym, repeated constantly. More a British English issue but obvious enough even to bloody Yanks. You need not introduce multiple languages to get problems. I could give examples, actually I collected them in print once, such as making a strong point at an A-D interface of analog "dither at a frequency near Nyquist." What does that mean exactly? (I'm sure the author knew.) I've used dither like that, in both possible meanings. It's an easily avoided language problem. (And even fairly recent.)
Reply by ●May 6, 20042004-05-06
Peter J. Kootsookos wrote:> Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> writes: > > >>My original point was about "less" and "fewer" in an article's title. >>Surely, an editor has enough time to look after titles! Not doing so >>raises the question of whether the ability is there. > > > Jerry, > > One of the hardest things for a reviewer to get an author to change is > the title of their beloved manuscript. > > Ciao, > > Peter K.Even to avoid solecism? The express-lane signs in my local supermarket were changed one day from "12 items or less" to "12 items or fewer". (I'd like to know the whole story leading to the change.) Jerry -- Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. �����������������������������������������������������������������������
Reply by ●May 7, 20042004-05-07
Hello Jerry, On Tue, 04 May 2004 16:43:25 -0400, Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> wrote:>Johannes Eble wrote:...>> Thanks for the compliment. On the other hand, I am sure that your >> English is better than my German. ;) > >I guessed wrong about your language.No, you were right. I am a native German. But my written German has got so poor. It is a shame. ;< ...>The editor allowed 'less' where 'fewer' was required and I faulted him >for that. I had no opportunity to review the paper or title before it >was posted. I don't even know who the editor is. What we can all see >from his work is that, whether excusably or not, he (or she) is not >entirely competent.He is not entirely competent in English, but does this imply that he is not competent in his subject? Sure, if the English is so bad that it's hard to understand the content then it's fine with me to reject the document. The question is where to draw the border (or line, hope you get my point). I doubt that you would not understand the content because of 'less' instead of 'fewer'. If an organization is meant to be international (and I assume this is the case with IEEE) then it should be more forgiving with mistakes in the language, as long as the document remains understandable. Or they could allow multiple (or all) languages which isn't feasible. Incidentally, one of the worst translation (English -> German) I have to use is the German Visual Studio .NET. The documentation (some of is mixed English/German!) is so bad that I prefer the English version, it is much more readable for me. Best regards Johannes
Reply by ●May 7, 20042004-05-07
Johannes Eble wrote:> Hello Jerry, > > On Tue, 04 May 2004 16:43:25 -0400, Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> wrote: > > >>Johannes Eble wrote: > > ... > > >>>Thanks for the compliment. On the other hand, I am sure that your >>>English is better than my German. ;) >> >>I guessed wrong about your language. > > > No, you were right. I am a native German. But my written German has > got so poor. It is a shame. ;< > > ... > > >>The editor allowed 'less' where 'fewer' was required and I faulted him >>for that. I had no opportunity to review the paper or title before it >>was posted. I don't even know who the editor is. What we can all see >>from his work is that, whether excusably or not, he (or she) is not >>entirely competent. > > > He is not entirely competent in English, but does this imply that he > is not competent in his subject?I would submit that if it is an English-language journal, then at least one of the "editors" should be competent in English. The underpaid secretary, perhaps?> Sure, if the English is so bad that it's hard to understand the > content then it's fine with me to reject the document. The question is > where to draw the border (or line, hope you get my point). I doubt > that you would not understand the content because of 'less' instead of > 'fewer'.I understand even when the writer/speaker speaks English at home. I suggest that pride of workmanship should lead the staff of a publication to correct at least the titles. A man is likely to be served if he enters a restaurant with his fly unzipped, but pride of self usually restrains him.> If an organization is meant to be international (and I assume this is > the case with IEEE) then it should be more forgiving with mistakes in > the language, as long as the document remains understandable. Or they > could allow multiple (or all) languages which isn't feasible.We were writing about "Journal of Circuits, Systems and Computers", as shown in the subject line. The table of contents was not inspiring.> Incidentally, one of the worst translation (English -> German) I have > to use is the German Visual Studio .NET. The documentation (some of is > mixed English/German!) is so bad that I prefer the English version, it > is much more readable for me.A Microsoft product? Jerry -- Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. �����������������������������������������������������������������������
