a comma

Also when evaluation of new assessment, different outcome measures need to be added to the respiratory
outcome besides the currently adapted outcome measures of improvement of lung function tests, reduced
exacerbation rates and hospitalisation rate that are currently used.

irrespective of the odd structure (am I right?) of the sentence below, I would like to know if the comma after "tests" have made the sentence more odd? I think that it should have been removed.

Definitely not. It's a serial comma and essential in that sentence.

I can make little sense of the sentence as it stands.

5jj said:

I can make little sense of the sentence as it stands.

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Yes, it's bad English, but it's obviously written by someone educated at least in medicine.
Is it possible to ask, Sepmre, the source of these paragraphs?

Well, to my knowledge, it's a paper on COPD written by a doctor who lives and teaches in an English language country.That's all I know.

Sepmre said:

Well, to my knowledge, it's a paper on COPD written by a doctor who lives and teaches in an English language country.That's all I know.

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The doctor appears to be knowledgeable, but I would be surprised if English is his/her first language. In the first few words in this piece, for example, (Also when evaluation of new assessment) the English is very poor.

MikeNewYork said:

The doctor appears to be knowledgeable, but I would be surprised if English is his/her first language. In the first few words in this piece, for example, (Also when evaluation of new assessment) the English is very poor.

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When experts start writing in their own fields, the quality of the language of many native speakers is appalling.

5jj said:

When experts start writing in their own fields, the quality of the language of many native speakers is appalling.

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I have edited hundreds of papers and I agree. But that opening was surprising, even to me.

It could be the result of copy and paste- that can be the cause of some strangeness in papers.

I don't think so, at least in this case, that this strangeness would be caused by copy and paste process.

Actually, the doctor who had written this paper is not a native English speaker.

Sepmre said:

Well, to my knowledge, it's a paper on COPD written by a doctor who lives and teaches in an English language country.That's all I know.

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Why are you having to study this stuff, Sepmre?