Text 15A3

Life for researchers whose first language is not English may get quite hard. Many academics assume that their research students come to them fully formed, but every student has to learn the culture of their discipline. For those who don’t speak English as a first language, the challenge is especially daunting.

Mentors need to spend more time helping students to understand the conventions of scientific writing and the expectations of various journals. There’s an art to turning a PhD thesis into a journal article. Without guidance, a student will not be able to do it properly.

Institutions need to do a lot more to support and prepare international students. It’s not enough to hire a specialist in academic writing. Such specialists often have backgrounds in the humanities or social science, and students also need assistance from scientists who can help them to write for their specific disciplines.

I sympathize with students who are trying to learn English on top of everything else because I started out in life speaking another language. My family and I were refugees who fled Hungary during the revolution of 1956.

English speakers have become the gatekeepers of science. By keeping those gates closed, we’re missing out on a lot of perspectives and a lot of good research.

Chris Woolston and Joana Osório. When English is not your mother tongue. Internet: <www.nature.com> (adapted).

Read the text to answer question.

The Tipping Point.

Last week at my neighborhood coffee shop, the barista flipped that dreaded tablet toward me. Three tip options glared back: 18%. 22%. 25%. For a $3.50 latte I was picking up. That took thirty seconds to make. I’ve hit my breaking point with tipping culture.

Growing up, tipping was simple: 15–20% for sitdown restaurants, maybe your hairdresser. Now it’s an expected tax on every transaction. The frozen yogurt shop where I serve myself wants 20%. Self-checkout kiosks are asking for tips. This is insane.

When I traveled Europe last summer, I paid exactly what was on the menu. No guilt, no calculations, no awkward pressure. Servers were paid living wages and the service was excellent.

Meanwhile, I’m expected to subsidize corporate America’s refusal to pay fair wages while their CEOs pocket millions in bonuses.

It’s 2025, and American tipping culture has spiraled out of control. It’s hurting workers, stressing customers, and letting profitable businesses guilt-trip their own customers into covering payroll. When I worked retail years ago, my employer paid my full wage. I didn’t expect customers to subsidize my paycheck because my boss decided to pocket the difference. Yet somehow in 2025, we’ve normalized corporations outsourcing their payroll responsibility to guilt-ridden customers. 72% of U.S. adults say tipping is expected in more places today than it was five years ago. But even as Americans say they’re being asked to tip more often, only about a third say it’s extremely or very easy to know whether (34%) or how much (33%) to tip for various services.

[...] The confusion is real and it’s intentional. Companies benefit from our uncertainty because confused customers tend to over-tip rather than risk social judgment.

Murdock, Jeff. Why Is Tipping Culture Out of Control in 2025? Medium. 16 Jun. 2025. Disponível em:<https://medium.com/@frat1309/why-is-tipping-cultureout-of-control-in-2025-im-done-subsidizing-corporategreed-76ba74887b82>