What ails Indian research papers? Poor quality or just bad grammar? Premium

K.M. Ajith and other researchers discuss the importance of writing skills in Indian academia and the challenges faced.

K.M. Ajith’s first research paper, co-authored with his supervisor in 2005, was about mathematical physics they had worked out in quantum field theory. The U.K. journal to which the paper was submitted had no hesitation in accepting the quality of the research work, yet the review was quite scathing.

“The reviewer pointed out grammatical errors, including for punctuation marks. And asked us to re-write from scratch,” says Mr. Ajith, who is now a professor at the National Institute of Technology, Karnataka.

The authors may have known quantum mechanics but not how to write succinctly. They asked for help from friends who were also pursuing research but whose English was better. Part of the difficulty was in rewriting the technical terms. Yet they managed to avoid jargon as much as possible to make it to the journal.

Mr. Ajith studied in a Malayalam medium school, and his exposure to English was minimal at that time. Twenty years into research and publishing, Mr. Ajith now speaks about why budding researchers should be good writers too.

India comes third after China and the U.S. in the number of research papers published, says a paper titled, Academic Writing in India: A Research Scholar’s View. But in the same paper, the authors also say the rejection rate of Indian papers is high, not so much due to poor research but more so due to weak language and grammar.

In a 2019 public notice, UGC said that writing programmes should be organised in research institutions to overcome this skill deficiency.

Somadatta Karak, head of science communication and public outreach at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, says, despite the courses, Indian students struggle with writing. She is concerned about the intensity and reach of the writing workshops and frameworks.