AS WE HAVE REMARKED in an earlier article, Managing Editors often return manuscripts for trivial, and often totally erroneous, reasons in their quest to diminish the workload of the referees. On the one hand, we fully accept that many experts provide their peer reviews for no remuneration at all and clearly do need protection. However, it is not that uncommon for an administrative editor to complain that an article contains "numerous errors of spelling and grammar" when detailed checks by Editione have shown that this is patently not the case at all.
We believe that a combination of two factors may trigger this type of response from a Managing Editor, namely, that the submitted manuscript derives from a non-English speaking country and that the accompanying covering letter is written in poor English. In such cases, it is quite likely that the administrator assumes, without checking, that the language of the manuscript itself must also be of poor quality and, hence, returns the submission without peer review.
In order to minimise such occurrences, Editione now provides a signed certificate stating that substantive editing has been carried out on the manuscript. This certificate also warrants that the manuscript is free from errors of grammar, syntax and spelling, and that it has been written in a style that is appropriate for the journal, while still maintaining the flavour of article as it appeared in the untranslated version.
Additionally, as we have outlined in a previous article, Editione will also provide an appropriate covering letter to accompany your submission. This letter can be our standard form letter personalised for your use, or we will translate your own letter that you would wish to submit (recommended!). Either way, your submission should not then be returned un-refereed for reasons of use of language.
The provision of a "Certificate of Substantive Editing" and the production of an appropriate covering letter form part of the Editione service and attract no extra cost! Why not try out the services of Editione for yourself at the next opportunity?
Remember the Roman Law - "Quod non est in actis, non est in mundo",
which loosely translated means "that which is not in the literature does not exist".
Barry V. Charlwood
October 2010
If you would like to comment on this article click here |
