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How to eliminate a bottleneck in English journal publication (1)
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I recently learned from a journal editor that “稿件的编辑加工是一个bottleneck.” Since I have been involved in journal publication for more than 15 years, first as an author and now as an English editor, I would like to share some views based on my own (limited) experiences.
To eliminate such a bottleneck, three steps are required: 1) good scientific writing skill, 2) good English editing assistance, and 3) professional copy-editing service (usually provided by the editorial office of the journal).
In U.S., most authors (at least in my field) are able to write research manuscripts on their own (Step one). They generally do not seek English editing services, but some do (Step two). In fact, my current school used to have a part-time editor, paid by the school (so there is no charge for authors who use this service). I am not sure what is available now. As for Step three, it depends on journal. One society called the AMS offers professional copy-editing at no additional charge. In fact, they are hiring another copy-editor right now. Another society called the AGU does not care how poor the English reads, in the title, the abstract, or the main text. Somewhere at its Web site, it states typos are authors’ responsibility. It’s embarrassing, but no one seems to care.
Since English journals in China tend to have many contributing authors with little English writing training, my suggestions for Step one are as follows.
1) The journal can provide a list of English editors and companies that have demonstrated their capability in scientific writing and editing in these specific fields covered by the journal’s scope. I want to recommend Liwenbianji (理文编辑; http://www.liwenbianji.cn/home), but a managing editor told me some authors were not too satisfied by the outcome. I suspect that it depends; fair enough.
2) The journal contracts a service provider that is willing to offer bulk rate. The cost is charged to the authors, who need such a service,
3) Some journals, including “Nature,” have their associated but separated editing services, such as the Nature Publishing Group Language Editing (http://languageediting.nature.com/). I think it’s a good idea. The editorial office can hire a staff to oversee this group, using Ph.D. candidates in the field whose English is already quite good, plus a managing English editor to ensure the quality of the final products. (I know some Chinese students who can write reasonably well, and their skills improve quickly after seeing tracked editing on their own work.) The cost should come from the authors who use this service, which should cover the staff, and provide income for the students and the managing English editor. I was told 99% of authors can afford to pay page charges, but I don’t know what percentage can afford this additional service, which can be as high as RMB 0.40/word (or USD 0.06/word).
(To be continued.)
https://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-306792-262563.html
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