English as a lingua franca; English as a native language; translation studies; linguistic interference; genre analysis; translator training

The study strives to reveal the competences and knowledge advanced users of English or fresh English Studies graduates still lack to achieve the native-speaker level in scientific writing. The paper presents findings resulting from a contrastive analysis of five research articles to be submitted to peer-reviewed journals published in English and their final submitted version proofread by native speakers/professional proof-readers. The research is a case study grounded in a qualitative analysis investigating corrections of issues seen as inappropriate on a variety of levels (on the lexico-grammatical level including modality, or nominal vs verbal way of expression; textual level and the degree of formality as well as on the generic level related to the genre of abstract and research article). The results are compared with findings brought by the ELFA project (Anna Mauranen 2010, 2012).