Scientific editing and translation

Just as there is no single correct way to write, there is no single correct way to edit. ELSS editing is sometimes ruthless rewriting; at other times it is permissive with only gentle corrections. An editor won't know which approach is appropriate unless he or she can understand the structure, technical content and reasoning in the manuscript. Always strive to help the author clearly, effectively, and efficiently communicate their science to readers. Before getting into details, please read the following comment that was written about substantive editing by Matthew Stevens, one of our most skilled subcontracting editors:

"…the tug between getting the words right and getting the meaning right. I struggle every day with staying focused on meaning. It is very easy to read the words and accept that they are right, without confirming what they say and imply. I try to borrow from the deconstructionists in analysing meaning. Do the data support the statement? Is the statement consistent with earlier statements? Is it logical? Does it really mean what it seems to say?"

To these questions, I would add a few more:
Is there a clear logical connection between the statement and the ones that came before? Does the statement provide context leading toward the one that follows? These questions should also be asked, at least implicitly, about paragraphs and sections. About meaning, be rigorous or even ruthless. Be especially careful to consider the literal meaning of the words and the resulting flow of reasoning. If you can't follow the reasoning, then there remains a problem that needs to be addressed: either address such issues yourself or at least draw the author's attention to problems that you don't know how to resolve.

Except in unusual special cases approved by ELSS in advance, editing should always be done in MS Word with track changes on. You may find it useful to toggle the tracked changes to not display on the screen. Comments to the author should be inserted directly into the document file with MS Word's comment feature after selecting the relevant text about which the comment applies.

When ELSS provides the name of the journal, the URL for the journal or the Instructions to Authors (ITA), then the journal's ITA must be followed by ELSS editors, even where they contradict these ELSS Editing Requirements (and preferences). When no ITA is available, the default is Scientific Style and Format, 7th edition; except for medical editing, for which the default is Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (http://www.icmje.org/).

Remove all grammatical errors

Fix all spelling and punctuation errors

Good research writing has the following 14 qualities:

1. Unity 2. Logic 3. Focus 4. Linkage 5. Context 6. Consistency 7. Coherence

8.  Cogency 9.  Credibility 10. Clarity 11. Conciseness 12. Specificity 13. Accuracy 14. Precision

These qualities should be clear at every level of the manuscript. Lack of any of these can and often does go beyond what an editor can fix, but ELSS editors are at least expected to recognize and comment about such problems that they cannot simply fix themselves.

Streamline clunky text to increase the 14 good research writing qualities listed above. For example, rearrange word order and delete repetition. Often it is useful to move a sentence's subject closer to the verb or to change the verb 'to be' to a more specific verb.

Remove ambiguity.

• Finished text should efficiently and effectively communicate the author's intended meaning
• Every sentence should be clear and meaningful.
• Every unit of discourse (sentence, paragraph, section) should be connected to the preceding and following units with logic, linkage and context.

Unless contraindicated by the journal ITA or some other persuasive reason like standard practice within a discipline, stick with past tense for reporting the results being newly presented and present tense for cited results from the literature. Present tense is also required for attribution, statistics, calculations, general statements (known truths), and conclusions. Passive voice is acceptable in the methods section where its use is traditional or in other sections where it is preferable for a clear reason. Elsewhere, favor active voice over passive, especially in sentences in which the actor is unclear. Some of our clients and rarely journal ITA's make specific requests to leave passive voice and avoid first person, contravening ELSS standard style. Client requests and journal ITA's take priority over ELSS default preferences.

Extremely important:

Preserve the author's intended meaning and nuance. Do not delete facts or other information. If a fact or observation seems to you best deleted, then suggest deletion in a comment, together with your polite and humble explanation of why you think so. There are exceptions to this prohibition on deleting facts (e.g. see the comments below about figure citations), but the exceptions mostly relate to moving information to a different section or deleting repetition (as opposed to removing something from the manuscript entirely). If you are very confident that deletion is necessary, then proceed with deletion but very politely explain why in a comment.

Missing information:

• If insertion of info might conceivably be objectionable to the author, then suggest the insertion in a comment.
• If insertion of the missing information seems highly unlikely to disturb the author, then insert it and mention the insertion in a comment.
• If you can see that something is missing, but can't figure out what it is, then comment.

Check that all text and figures are consistent with themselves, with each other, and with the text. Check that all in-text citations are referenced and all references are cited in the text. Note any discrepancies between citations and references. Encourage authors to delete references that are not cited and to provide references for citations that are not referenced. However, ELSS neither charges clients nor pays subcontractors for formatting or ensuring the accuracy of the reference list. We do not charge for it because doing so would cause some frugal clients to omit it from the material they ask us to work on, thereby sometimes hindering our work on the main text. ELSS does not accept responsibility for fixing the references beyond checking that references are cited and in-text citations referenced. However, please do quickly scan to see whether the reference format does match the journal requirements. If not, then please comment about that. We do have responsibility to see that the in-text citations are correctly formatted.

In research writing, words that have specific statistical meanings (e.g., significant, correlation)  should be used only for those specific statistical meanings. If you cannot be sure whether an author is using such a word in the specific statistical sense (e.g., P or other relevant statistical  values are excluded), then please comment about this problem and suggest suitable alternatives in a comment.

Keywords should exclude title words. When title words are included among the keywords, please comment to recommend that the author delete or replace them with other words.

Unless contraindicated by journal ITA, I prefer that the Introduction include brief mention of the basic methodological approach used, the main results and the main conclusion(s), all in the context of the explanation of the nature and scope of the problem being studied. This need not be written by the ELSS editor, but please do not delete such information from the introduction unless deletion is required by the ITA.

If statements are in the wrong section, move them to the appropriate section. If the text to be moved is long, turn off change tracking before the move, move the text, insert a comment explaining the move to the author, and then don't forget to turn change tracking back on.

When the editor can create clearer and more communicative text without altering the author's intended meaning, removing information included in the original, nor adding information that was absent from the original, then the necessary changes should be made directly without comment. Otherwise, changes can be either made with a comment requesting the author to confirm acceptability or simply suggested in a comment, depending on the editor's degree of uncertainty. Educated guesses about what the author means are fine, with appropriate annotation in comments. Sometimes comments might contain 2 or more alternative versions of revised text corresponding to various interpretations of the author's intention.  

Please block the relevant text to which a comment applies before inserting the comment. If comments to ELSS or the reviewing editor are necessary, then these can be prepared either in a separate Word doc or in the cover email with which the finished edit is returned. Do not refer to comments in the manuscript by number, as the comment numbers will often be changed in other versions of MS Word or by a reviewer (a second ELSS editor) by insertion or deletion of comments during the final check; the most recent versions of Word seem to not use comment numbers. Instead, copy relevant text from previous comments into all other relevant comments. If you change computers during an edit or if you are reviewing comments from another editor, then please turn off change tracking before deleting any comments. If you don't turn off change tracking, then the deleted comments can still be visible in the document. Remember to turn track changes back on before proceeding to the rest of the edit or review.

All of the resulting text should be easily understandable to any technically literate reader. If the text contains words or concepts that are unfamiliar to the ELSS editor, then we expect the editor to look these up; however, we try to dispatch jobs to each editor in areas in which they already have appropriate expertise.

Most of our authors use Japanese operating systems. Contrary to ELSS advice, some authors include double-byte characters in their documents. These characters might or might not appear correctly on your computer. You can decrease the probability of problems in viewing double-byte characters by having Japanese language support  installed for your operating system, MS Office (or MS Word and MS Excel if you have installed them without MS Office), and Adobe Acrobat or Acrobat Reader. If you don't know how to install or check for Japanese language support on your computer, then please search on the web. If answers still elude you, then ask us for assistance and mention the version numbers of your OS and the relevant applications (MS Word, Office, etc.).

Even with Japanese language support installed, you may sometimes be unable to see some characters displayed properly in a document we send you. When this occurs, if we sent you a PDF version of the file, check whether the characters are displayed correctly in the PDF. In such cases, it is best to comment to the author as follows: "This character does not appear correctly on my screen. Please check that it displays correctly on your screen and in the printed copy. The target journal may also have difficulty with double-byte characters. I recommend that you use single-byte characters exclusively throughout the manuscript." Furthermore, some journals specify how symbols are to be rendered. Some prohibit use of the Symbol font, preferring the symbol characters in the same font used for the rest of the text. Other journals encourage use of the Symbol font. If unsure in a particular case, please check the ITA.


Encourage presentation of information in the most effective medium for communication with readers: figures, table, or text. Information should be presented once, and not repeated. For example, do not provide the data in both a figure and a table, or both a table and in the text (of course mentioning in the text some particular values from the table may be entirely appropriate).

Check that accessories to the text (tables, figures, etc.) are organized appropriately to the information they contain. Redrafting tables or figures is beyond the scope of our responsibilities, but editors should explain the problems and give suggestions for improvement in comments, unless the client requests that we leave these alone.

Unless a figure shows something physical like apparatus, then references to it in the text should be parenthetical. For example, for figures that show data or graphs (not something physical), do not let stand sentences that begin "Figure x shows…"  A complete description of what each figure shows must be provided in the figure caption and should not be repeated in the text.

ELSS editing is aggressive. We prefer to preserve the author's voice, but not if doing so leaves the text difficult to read.

Catching plagiarism is not ELSS' responsibility. However, we sometimes notice plagiarism while editing. It seems to be more common in writing by non-native English speakers. Our clients are better served by polite comments about the need to quote directly-copied phrases and credit the original source for such quotes, rather than ignoring plagiarism. Probably it is best to avoid the word 'plagiarism' in such comments.

ELSS editing usually includes comments about the science. For example, are the conclusions supported sufficiently by the evidence in the paper (and preferably with the evidence summarized nearby the conclusion in the text)?  ELSS editors are not journal peer reviewers; however, I maintain that first rate substantive editing is not possible without dealing with meaning in ways that will overlap what a diligent peer reviewer will do. Comments about meaning or the appropriateness of author statements must be very polite. Most of our clients are very grateful for the deep level to which we edit their papers. Of course they are free to reject any of our suggestions or concerns. Authors will be able to more seriously consider our suggestions if they are expressed politely and diplomatically. Never be confrontational or condescending, but do not let problems pass without comment.

All ELSS jobs must be treated confidentially. Unless explicitly authorized by ELSS, do not contact anyone except the ELSS office regarding any document that ELSS asks you to work on. Subcontractors must sign and return our Non-Disclosure Agreement before we will send them work.

Our changes are only suggestions.  One of the nice aspects of revision tracking is that clients can review the changes one by one and reverse those that they do not like.  I tend to be aggressive in my editing but very accommodating when the author complains about something.

Matthew Stevens has published a superb little book that I enthusiastically recommend: Subtleties of Scientific Style. You can download it as a pdf.
If you find it useful, then please either pay Matthew or ask ELSS; we might be willing to buy it for you if you are editing with us.

There was a very nice article published in American Scientist that discusses characteristics of good scientific writing: The Science of Scientific Writing. I agree with everything that article says.  You can download the text of that article online.

I also strongly recommend 'How to write and publish a scientific paper', 6th edition, by Robert A. Day and Barbara Gastel.  This book clearly expresses a philosophy of scientific writing that I heartily agree with.  I use this as the text in my scientific writing class; it is also very convenient that it has been translated into Japanese, at least through the 5th edition).  Day's writing style is entertaining as well.  

If I have to describe ELSS editing style concisely, we strive to make it easy for the reader to understand the writer's intended meaning. Every sentence, paragraph, and section should be easy for a scientifically literate reader to understand, and should contribute to the main purpose of the paper.

Skillful substantive editing is difficult to do and perhaps even more difficult to explain. These guidelines are necessarily incomplete, but I hope that readers will gain from them some understanding of the kind of editing that ELSS requires. Substantive editing goes far, far beyond copyediting. Are you confident that you can do the type of rigorous substantive editing and copyediting that ELSS requires?

Reviewing edited manuscripts is a particularly challenging task because the pay does not justify spending large amounts of time becoming familiar with the document. The primary editor spends more time and has responsibility to delve beneath the skin to become familiar with the essence of the story being communicated. In cases where the edited document corresponds closely with the original text, reviewing is simple proofreading to correct typos, simple mistakes of spelling or grammar, oversights and deletions. However, when the primary editor must rewrite extensively, rearrange text, add content (for example statements that bridge two ideas), or remove information extraneous to the story, then the edited document under review may bear little resemblance to the original. Given reasonable time constraints, it is unreasonable to ask reviewing editors to carefully check the correspondence of the edited manuscript to the original. The only exception to this principle is when ELSS asks roster editors to review the editing of non-roster editors. In such cases, our default policy is to double the reviewing fee, with additional increases considered upon request, and to require careful checking of the correspondence between the original and edited version to assure that information has not been inserted or deleted without comment and that the edited version effectively communicates the author's intended meaning.

The basic responsibilities of reviewing editors in typical cases are to fix mistakes in spelling and grammar, and obvious style and format problems; usually reviewing editors would not be expected to carefully read the Instructions to Authors of the target journal.

ELSS roster editors have been vetted and can be promoted to the roster only after demonstrating consistent proficiency in resolving and clarifying the intended meaning, while preserving the information in the original or at least commenting to seek author approval when convincing reasons exist to delete or insert something. Nevertheless, we all have bad days and sometimes marginally skillful editors get onto the ELSS roster (feedback about this to Rick is appreciated). On unusual occasions a reviewer finds that the primary editor has left serious problems remaining or even caused new problems in the document. In such cases, we ask that the reviewing editor take the time to put the manuscript right and bring it up to ELSS standards. This work will be paid at a higher rate than reviewing to be discussed on a case-by-case basis.

ELSS editors are professionals and as such should accept criticism graciously in a spirit of cooperation and collaboration. After all, we work together to deliver a high quality service to our clients. When a reviewer finds any seemingly serious problem, they should point it out to the primary editor humbly and politely, usually when the entire review is complete. Editors should read any criticisms in the constructive way in which they have been offered, but feel free to respond and discuss any issues on which consensus is not yet apparent. Generally, if there are two alternatives, neither of which is clearly superior, then the discretion of the primary editor should be respected.

Rick should be CCed on all such discussions. Private feedback to Rick about the performance of any ELSS editor is always welcome.