The English needs improvement: turning a vague comment into a fix list.

"The English needs improvement" is a stock reviewer comment that almost never arrives with a list of errors attached. In manuscripts by authors writing in English as an additional language, it usually points at five predictable problems: wordy phrasing, overloaded sentences, article errors, sentence patterns carried over from the first language, and drifting verb tense. The way through is a targeted triage of the manuscript against those five categories, not a blanket rewrite and not an apology.

Why don't reviewers list the language errors?

Because listing them is copyediting, and reviewers are not copyeditors. A reviewer who marked every faulty article in a 6,000-word manuscript would spend more time on grammar than on the science they were asked to judge, so they compress the whole problem into one sentence and hand the work back to you.

The vagueness has a second source. Many reviewers can feel that a sentence is off without being able to name the rule it breaks, and a fair share of them write in English as a second language themselves. One safe sentence covers everything. Unfair as it reads at midnight, the editor treats it as a routine flag, not a verdict: the language needs a serious pass before the paper moves forward. The comment is a category label. You supply the diagnosis.

Which problems trigger the comment most often?

Five issues do most of the damage in EAL manuscripts: wordy filler phrases, sentences asked to carry too much, article mistakes, translated sentence structure, and tense drift.

Wordy phrasing comes first because it is the fastest to fix. Academic English drags a stock of inflated connectors (it is worth mentioning that, due to the fact that, in the present study we sought to) that add length without adding meaning. Waraq's built-in rule library carries a check for exactly this, style.concision.wordy: "Replace wordy phrases with concise equivalents." A replacement table of the fifty most common offenders is in 50 wordy academic phrases and their short versions.

Overloaded sentences are the second trigger. A sentence that holds a method, its justification, and a caveat at the same time forces the reviewer to read it twice, and a reviewer who rereads three sentences in one paragraph starts drafting the comment. Split at the second clause. Two plain sentences beat one impressive one every time.

Articles are third, and for Arabic speakers they are the loudest error class, because Arabic has no indefinite article and deploys its definite article on a different logic. Readers of English register a missing the instantly, even when the science underneath is untouched. Fourth is translationese, sentence shapes imported wholesale from your first language; the specific patterns and their fixes have their own post, 7 signs your paper reads like a translation. Fifth is tense drift: methods that begin in past tense and slide into present halfway through a paragraph.

How do I triage my own manuscript?

Read your methods section aloud, and mark every place where you stumble, reread, or run out of breath. The methods section is the right test bed because its language is formulaic by design; against that plain background, an overloaded sentence or a wrong article stands out the way a typo stands out on a form.

Then sort the marks into the five categories above and count them. "The English needs improvement" is unanswerable, but 31 wordy phrases, 14 sentences to split, 22 article corrections is a weekend of work with a visible finish line. Do the same pass on the abstract and the first page of the discussion, since those are the pages everyone reads. The rest of the manuscript gets the same categories applied silently.

Is fixing the manuscript the same as answering the comment?

No, and mixing the two tasks is a common trap. The revision produces two separate deliverables: a corrected manuscript, and a reply that states plainly what you changed. Rewriting your prose is this post. Writing the reply belongs to the response letter, and the structure that editors expect is covered in how to write a response to reviewers letter, with the entry-by-entry mechanics in the point-by-point response format.

In the reply, resist the urge to defend your English or explain your background. One factual entry is enough: the language was revised throughout, here are the categories, here is where to look.

What do journals actually require of the English?

Less than most authors fear. PLOS ONE's submission guidelines state the language requirement in six words: "Manuscripts must be submitted in English." That is the entire rule. Frontiers journals set the bar one step higher and tie it to the decision itself: "Frontiers requires submitted manuscripts to meet international English language standards to be considered for publication."

Read both rules again and notice what is absent. No native speakers. No certificates. No eloquence. The published standard is clear scientific English that lets a reviewer follow the methods without rereading, which is exactly what the five-category triage produces.

How do I show evidence of the language revision?

Submit a tracked-changes file and cite your edits by category, with counts. An editor cannot recheck 6,000 words line by line, so a reply that says only we have improved the English invites a second round of the same comment. A reply that reports the numbers from your triage, each category tied to the tracked-changes file, closes the loop: the reviewer's one vague sentence has been answered with visible, countable work. Where a category maps to a published rule, cite the rule; concision edits, for instance, answer to style.concision.wordy by name. This is the pass where a rule-based manuscript review such as Waraq earns its keep, flagging each wordy phrase and overlong sentence against the specific rule it breaks, so the categorized list and the citations for your reply fall out of one run.

The comment is vague because the reviewer left the diagnosis to you. Supply it. Five categories, one read-aloud pass, a tracked-changes file, and a reply that counts the edits.