Crossing the language limitations
2006
Crossing the Language Limitations
Editorial
Author Information
Author(s): Pan Zhenglun, Jin Gao
Primary Institution: Shandong Provincial Hospital, Jinan, China
Hypothesis
The quality of an article is not determined by its language of publication.
Conclusion
Language bias in scientific publishing can hinder the evaluation of research quality.
Supporting Evidence
- PubMed-indexed Chinese studies did worse than Chinese studies not indexed in PubMed in defining disease with specific criteria.
- Language accounts for much in today’s database, especially when we are searching it for evidence.
Takeaway
Some scientific journals are not in English, and that doesn't mean they are of lower quality. We need to pay attention to research published in other languages too.
Potential Biases
Language bias may affect the evaluation of scientific research.
Statistical Information
P-Value
0.042
Statistical Significance
p=0.042
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
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