In the beginning of this year we rejoiced over the decision to make language checks of doctoral dissertations (both monographs and article based ones) completely free of charge. This kind of unexpected good news was a wonderful surprise for all the countless PhD students who are writing in English as a second language and worrying about getting their message through to the reader in good academic English.

Unfortunately, the association has just recently heard that the decision has been reversed. Not only will PhD students from the 1 June 2017 need to pay for the language check, they will need to pay the full price. Last year the language centre offered PhD students a lower price of 8€ / first 10 pages and 6,50€/page for the rest, but from next month we will need to pay the full price of 13,60€ / page. For a monograph of 250 pages the fee could be around 3000 €, and somewhat less for an article based thesis. Given that PhD students are already working on uncertain and often insufficient funding it is obvious that not many will be able to afford a language check in the future.

It makes no sense that the university withdraws the support for language checking and at the same time encourages us to write in English – which in many disciplines is the only sensible option anyhow. Would it not be a merit for the university if dissertations would be written in not only good, but excellent English?

The association hopes that this decision will be thought through once more, and that some form of compromise in the form of a lower price could be reached if the language check cannot be offered completely for free.

Edit: The language center will inform about the change soon, likely by next week.