Frequently asked questions
Q: We were thinking of submitting our manuscript to be edited at our local school of English. Why are your services better?
A: I am sure that your local school of English will do an excellent job of correcting your grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.
However, in case of scientific and technical texts, understanding of scientific method and of particular subject matter is of outmost importance.
No one can be an expert in everything – that’s why we specialize in natural science texts.
To avoid a possible distortion of intended meaning, the editor should be able to understand the methods, results and conclusions.
This is particularly important for the difficult texts requiring a lot of re-phrasing and polishing; our service is specifically tailored for such manuscripts.
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Q: What do you mean by ‘re-phrasing’?
A: Many texts, particularly those written by the authors whose mother tongue has syntax different from English (e.g. Chinese, Korean, etc.), suffer from faulty sentence structure. Often, this makes them very difficult to understand – the only remedy is to re-write the whole sentence, without losing the original meaning. This is not an easy task as it requires a thorough understanding of the subject matter – in fact, usually the whole paper has to be read and understood before such corrections can be undertaken.
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Q: Why do you use the Word tracking system?
A: Apart from the normal grammar, punctuation and spelling corrections, a certain amount of re-phrasing and polishing is sometimes necessary.
We verify all the technical terms and have a careful look at the general text flow to spot possible repetitions or inconsistencies. We might recommend removal of some sentences, breaking some into shorter versions, adding some words or replacing them with more appropriate phrases.
Sometimes, we’ll suggest inserting additional sentences to improve the logical flow of the manuscript. We also check figures and tables to make sure that they are consistent with their description in the main text. Similar, already published papers are often consulted to make sure that the intended meaning is preserved.
The changes can be sometimes quite substantial and need to be checked and confirmed by the authors, so we often add some comments in Word’s tracking system or in a separate document.
Using this system, you can accept or reject the changes: either one by one or globally.
Please let us know if you are not familiar with the system: we will send you detailed instructions.
