Dissertation Editing

You have spent the past 5 years tirelessly collecting data and performing all the menial tasks that your advisor/mentor/slave driver has asked of you.  Hundreds of pages of research piled high on the pages of your dissertation. This is your crowning achievement and it is filled with papers ready to be sent off to scientific journals.  The problem is, not all great scientists are great writers.

In order to meet your, your advisor’s, your committee’s and the reviewer and journal editor’s expectations, you may need scientific editing services.  Our professional scientific editors can offer a variety of levels of editing.  We can offer proofreading services to correct grammar and spelling.  If you need additional help, we can offer significant comprehensive editing and re-organization to make your dissertation flow seamlessly.

We can offer also higher levels of services to help you create the perfect document.  Our scientific editing staff can assist in:

• Statistical and research design
• Background research and literature reviews
• Formatting for specific journals
• Formatting to meet the needs of your University
• Formatting to meet established styles (APA, AMA, MLA, Chicago)
• Statistical analysis
• Assistance creating a slide-show presentation based on your findings

It is important to note that we will not write your dissertation for you.  The dissertation is the final achievement of all of your hard work and is something to look back on and be proud of forever.  We will help you create a final document that is error free and accurately represents all of your hard work.

Contact our friendly staff if you have any questions!  Our services are accurate, fast and confidential.

www.ScientificEditingService.com

www.TechnicalEnglish.us

Personal.Proofer@gmail.com

What is the impact factor for a journal and is it important?

The impact factor of a journal is a number that is assigned based on the number of times articles from that journal were cited over the past 2 years.  It is a simple ratio of the number of times articles were cited compared to the total number of articles.  To determine the 2008 impact factor the following equation would be used:

A = Number of articles from a particular journal that were cited during the years 2006 and 2007

B = Total number of articles published in a particular journal over the same time period

Impact Factor = A/B

While the impact factor does provide some important information about a journal, it can be very misleading.  Particularly so when we are looking at sub-specialty journals.  Journals that appeal to a variety of scientific areas and have are well-distributed (say Science for example), will have an extremely high impact factor.  However, subspecialty journals, say Clinical Biomechanics, appeals to a much smaller and more specialized audience.  This journal may contain excellent and superb research, but because the articles here are used by a smaller audience and they are likely to only be cited in a few other subspecialty journals, the impact factor for Clinical Biomechanics would be much lower.  So while the impact factor gives us an idea of the popularity of a journal, it does not speak to the quality of the articles contained within a journal.

Other people have proposed alternate ways of measuring a journals worth, such as the page-rank method.  All of these methods still have drawbacks.  It has been suggested that journals can artificially inflate their impact factor and the window measuring the impact factor is rather small.  A debate can be found here.

Our scientific editors can help you choose which journal is right for you publication and can tell you the impact factor of the journals that you are planning on submitting to.  Many journals will list their impact factors on their homepage, although a collective list of the impact factors is not easily obtainable due to copyright restrictions.

How to deal with rejection

Rejection hurts.  Whether it occurs in our love life or our research life, emotional distress after rejection is inescapable.  But we should learn something from each rejection.  My suggestion for dealing with a bad review:

1. Put the paper and review aside for a few days and don’t think about it.  This will allow you to re-read the review without the initial anger that normally accompanies a bad review of your hard work.
2. Re-read the comments from the reviewers after a few days and think about how you can incorporate them into your paper
3. Re-read your own paper again and see how the reviewers made some valid points
4. Set aside some specific time to make the changes that the reviewers requested.  Before submitting to a new journal, nake sure that you have addressed all the concerns of the reviewers.  If they had issues with the paper one time, chances are a different set of reviewers will have the same concerns, so making the changes will make the next review process easier.
5. Of course – sending the paper to a scientific editor to improve the flow of the paper always helps.

As for rejection in real life or in love life, well there are plenty of people more qualified than me to answer those questions!

Joseph Zeni

Personal.Proofer@gmail.com

www.TechnicalEnglish.us

www.ScientificEditingService.com

Getting Scientific Articles Published: The Importance of Scientific Editing

So you want to have your hard work published in a peer-reviewed journal. You have spent hours in the lab, tediously carrying out cutting edge research. You have great data and think that it should be published in a top tiered journal with a huge impact factor. Maybe Science or Nature or JAMA or the New England Journal of Medicine. The only thing standing in your way is the English language. Grammar, organization, paragraphs, participles, articles….why do they have to create such a complicated language. Well there are people that can help – professional scientific editors.

If you are not a native English speaker and writer, then professional scientific editing is the key to getting your work published in the scientific community. There are numerous scientific editing websites that are available, so choosing between all of them can be difficult. Here are some suggestions. In today’s age, people are always looking to make money on the internet. The scientific editing websites usually have numerous editors that are overwhelmed with their own work as well as the work of their nameless clients. Instead of using a popular website with nameless editors, I feel that it is always better to use a service where you can communicate directly and quickly with your editor. Websites such as www.TechnicalEnglish.us and www.ScientificEditingService.com are two great sites where you can have your work professionally edited by a friendly and well-educated staff member.

These websites offer discounts to students and to persons who refer colleagues and co-workers to the website. Check out the site, and send in a sample of the work for a no-obligation quote. Your work is guaranteed. The friendly editors are standing by!

Personal.Proofer@gmail.com
www.TechnicalEnglish.us
www.ScientificEditingService.com

How to get articles published in peer-reviewed journals

1. Write for the journal to which you are submitting the manuscript

Different journals will have different rules and instructions for authors. These rules are specific to each journal, so you should pay special attention. Often times, incorrect formatting will result in the immediate rejection or return of a manuscript by an editor and journal. In order to maintain internal consistency in the journals, these instructions often include strict requirements for 1) Section formatting 2) In-text citation and bibliography 3) Page and word length 4) Font type 5) Line numbering 6) Blinding procedures. For most of the American and European journals, there is a link to the “Instructions for Authors” right on the main page. Professional scientific editing services can ensure that your paper is correctly formatted for the journal to which you are submitting.

2. Use proper grammar

This is where scientific editing services will help you tremendously. While you may have terrific data, exceptional results and the perfect graphs, this may all be lost if you use improper words and grammar. Clear and concise writing is essential to convey your findings. Reviewers confronted with a confusing article will often become frustrated and are more likely to give a lower review of the work. Scientific Editing Service will make sure that the word use and grammar in your article are perfect. If there is any uncertainty in the points that you are trying to make, these services will help to improve your writing so your point is clear and you get the best review possible.

3. Use correct organization

It is important that each section of your manuscript contain the information that should be in that specific section. Your introduction section should contain several important points, particularly 1) The rationale for carrying out the work 2) Background work that supports your rationale 3) The purpose of the work and your stated hypothesis. In the methods you should only contain information pertaining to the tests that you collected and background literature that further describes your techniques. You should not provide extensive rationale for your methods here, that information should be contained in other sections. The results should contain just that – results. It should be objective and not biased. The discussion section should explain your findings and the importance of your findings, it should not be a reiteration of your results. Do not bring up any findings that you did not explain in your methods and results section. Some journals will have different requirements for each section or even have specific names that you should call each section. As above – be sure to read the instructions to authors section for the journal to which you are going to submit the article. This will ensure better reviews and a higher percentage of accepted papers and abstracts.