Bias-free language

In academic research and theses, universities around the world are becoming more aware of bias-free language. The noun bias means prejudice for or against something. If bias is present, that means there may be some degree of favoritism or unfairness. Academic researchers cannot always be objective about everything. Like all human beings, they have preferences. But their research papers and theses are written in the spirit that whatever the results of the academic research, it should be reported honestly. If we have a bias about the way research will turn out even before we do it, that may strongly influence our results. This could lead to useless research that will not convince readers. If we have already made up our minds before we do our research, why bother to do the research at all? If we are not willing to be surprised by the results of our research, are we really ready to learn something? Many of the great discoveries in science were made because the researchers were willing to be surprised. When their results were not what they expected, they learned from these surprises, and new information was gained. Students of statistics may know about the term bias, meaning a distortion of a statistical result. Clearly no one wants to produce academic research that is distorted. An example of the use of the word bias is this headline about publications in the United Kingdom:

Is the Guardian as biased and agenda-pushing as the Daily Mail?

Bias-free language is objective and does not give the impression that the writer is prejudiced. Since any academic research paper or thesis is meant to impress readers, we would not want to offend any student or ajarn because we used biased language. This is particularly challenging for writers of English as a foreign language. It is difficult to know all the latest academically approved terms. For example, Thai students want to show respect to older people and if a thesis or academic research paper refers to old people, they may choose to use the term elders or seniors or senior citizen. Yet these terms are now considered old fashioned, out of date, and somewhat insulting to old people. The reason it seems insulting is that if we are afraid to use the term old, or think it is not polite enough, it can make the state of being old seem like a bad thing to be. In the Western world, if academic research refers to old people, then it mentions the term old people or possibly people of advanced age. If we are doing new research, we do not want our readers to think we are old fashioned or out of date. In the same way, students at the Faculty of Medicine are aware that if they are doing research about disabled people, then the term disabled people is the most approved one. They should avoid such terms as handicapped, physically challenged or crippled. This is because people with disabilities prefer terms that refer to them as people, rather than as illnesses. Also, some terms such as crippled have an emotional meaning from writings many years ago, and this emotion is not suitable for objective scientific research today. By using the right words, we maintain the correct tone. We show politeness and respect to the subjects of our research. And we also prove to our reader that we are current and up to date with the correct vocabulary in our scholarly field. We do not use words that were fashionable 100 years ago.

In a comparable way, if we are writing a research paper or thesis on people who are learning disabled or who have a cognitive disability or intellectual and developmental disability, we should be careful not to refer to them as mentally retarded, slow, or brain-damaged. Over the years, such terms have given a negative impression of people who are learning disabled. When we research them, we do not want to give the impression we hate them or think they are inferior as human beings. So we use the current bias-free terms.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)