Great article, Marcel. I do a lot of the kind of reviews you mention and have been doing so for about 20 years. The only point you make that I would like to develop is about note-making from texts by native speakers (NS) of English. I strongly agree with what you say but add that it would help non-native speakers NNSs) enormously if they regularly looked again at a well-written article by an NS of English from a grammar and vocabulary point of view. The idea is to identify certain formulae that are used. For example, what are different ways of saying: the aim/objective of this article is to eg this article puts forward .. or this article sets out to ..; / the motivation for this article is (do native speakers ever say/ write this?) / how often does the NS say — it is necessary that or it is possible that — instead of using have to / must / need to and may (well) / might (well).

My pet hates in NNS writing include

1. the ‘empty’ use of process eg in the process of the implementation of the model. Why not: when/while/ on implementing the model; in the process of the development of the model / elaboration of the results ... when/while/on designing or writing a report on the results;
2. the thoughtless overuse of the preposition ‘through’ — usually much better is by means of or by (doing) something;
3. the thoughtless overuse of ‘aspect’. Often the NNS means to say issue, problem, characteristic or perhaps matter. To the NS, the way the NNS uses aspect is meaningless and/or confusing.
4. the overuse of ‘in this sense’ Normally therefore or thus is much better.

I am working with speakers of Portuguese. Among the general rules for good writing in Portuguese are the following:

1. Avoid the repetition of the same word. This is BAD advice for English because the instinct of the NS reader is that the use of a synonym suggests the writer means somthing slightly different.
2. Non-personalization of content ie absence of I/we. This depends on the periodical/ journal. Some prefer the use of I/we.
3. A tendency towards substantivization ie using nouns and not verbal forms of the noun. For example .. in the application of this program… whereas English prefers verbalization — on applying this program.
4. Academic writing in Portuguse tends to use reduced participle clauses much more than English does and this often leads to long sentences in Portuguese that flow well in Portuguese. However, English often cannot use present participles in the same way and often the best thing to do is to convert the -ing form into a full verb. For example, English cannot say: The programe is then run, generating a report but must say The program is run and a report is produced.

Hope these comments are of interest and helpful.

Roddy Kay