Writing well in English is a challenge for non-native English speakers. When readers are unable to comprehend what they read they just give up reading and fail to get to the content. In this paper we describe problems encountered in the English writing of scientific abstracts by Brazilian Portuguese speakers. We collected and analyzed a corpus of 115 abstracts in which we identified specific language-related errors that affect comprehension. We show that students who must write scientific papers may benefit significantly with practice exercises, and computer-based tools. The use of such tools can enhance the students' level of confidence and thus enable them to improve their writing.
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