# Does Scientific Writing Converge to U.S. English? Evidence from Generative AI-Assisted Publications

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.11687 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.11687/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 17 of its 78 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 Nov 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 17 of 17)

- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [Sentence-BERT: Sentence Embeddings using Siamese BERT-Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.10084/) (2019)
- [Efficient Estimation of Word Representations in Vector Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1301.3781/) (2013)
- [Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.12712/) (2023)
- [SciBERT: A Pretrained Language Model for Scientific Text](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.10676/) (2019)
- [GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.02819/) (2023)
- [Monitoring AI-Modified Content at Scale: A Case Study on the Impact of ChatGPT on AI Conference Peer Reviews](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.07183/) (2024)
- [Delving into LLM-assisted writing in biomedical publications through excess vocabulary](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.07016/) (2024)
- [AI Suggestions Homogenize Writing Toward Western Styles and Diminish Cultural Nuances](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.11360/) (2024)
- [ChatGPT "contamination": estimating the prevalence of LLMs in the scholarly literature](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.16887/) (2024)
- [Is ChatGPT Transforming Academics' Writing Style?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.08627/) (2024)
- [A review of the literature on citation impact indicators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1507.02099/) (2015)
- [The Journal Coverage of Web of Science, Scopus and Dimensions: A Comparative Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.00223/) (2020)
- [How much are LLMs changing the language of academic papers after ChatGPT? A multi-database and full text analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.09596/) (2025)
- [Constructing bibliometric networks: A comparison between full and fractional counting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.02452/) (2016)
- [GPT Editors, Not Authors: The Stylistic Footprint of LLMs in Academic Preprints](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.17327/) (2025)
- [Misclassification in Difference-in-differences Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.11890/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [An LLM-Associated Register Shift in Korean Journal Abstracts: A Morphology-Aware Excess-Vocabulary Study, 2018-2026](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.07447/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

A growing literature documents that generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is changing scientific writing, yet most studies focus on absolute changes in vocabulary or readability. An important question remains unanswered: Does GenAI use lead to systematic convergence, or a narrowing of stylistic gaps relative to the dominant form of scientific English? Unlike absolute changes, convergence signals whether language-related publication barriers are declining and suggests broader implications for participation and competition in global science. This study directly addresses this question using 5.65 million English-language scientific articles published from 2021 to 2024 and indexed in Scopus. We measure linguistic similarity to a U.S. benchmark corpus using SciBERT text embeddings, and estimate dynamic changes using an event-study difference-in-differences design with repeated cross-sections centered on the late-2022 release of ChatGPT. We find that GenAI-assisted publications from non-English-speaking countries exhibit statistically significant and increasing convergence toward U.S. scientific English, relative to non-GenAI-assisted publications from these countries. This effect is strongest for domestic author teams from countries more linguistically distant from English and for articles published in lower-impact journals -- precisely the contexts where language barriers have historically been most consequential. The results suggest that GenAI tools are reducing language-related barriers in scientific publications. Whether this represents genuine inclusion or a deepening dependence on a single linguistic standard remains an open question.