The document discusses language polishing services that help non-native English speaking authors. It notes an increasing number of submissions from overseas authors who may need help with English. Service providers work to correct grammar, spelling, clarity and readability of manuscripts for authors. SPi's language polishing solution partners with publishers and uses Asia-based editors to polish manuscripts for authors from over 30 countries within 2 weeks on average. The service aims to help more non-English authors get published.

1. Language Polishing:
Services to Help Non-Native English-Speaking Authors
Elizabeth Nolan, VP, Sales & Marketing, SPi, Publishing
Solutions
People
Innovation

2. Language Polishing:
Services to Help Non-Native English-Speaking Authors
• Trends in Submissions
• The Problem – English
• Author Support Services
• SPi’s Solution
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3. Trends in Submissions
• Authors are submitting 2.5 million papers a year for publication in the
STM journal of their choice.*
• Increasing submission of articles from overseas.
Annals of Emergency Medicine
- 2002 – 33 countries 23%
- 2003 – 34 countries 21%
- 2004 – 53 countries 33%
*Estimates from Business Case Study
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4. Trends in Submissions
• More papers submitted by non-native English speakers.
– Commenting on his experiences with Editorial Manager, Paul Weller,
Publisher, Pharmaceutical Press, said, "Moving to online peer review has
been a very rewarding experience and is changing the way we think about
our publishing activities. For example, we have seen a substantial increase in
the number of manuscripts submitted, especially from Asia, and this creates
fertile opportunities for broadening our publishing initiatives.“
• Impact of Open Access—journals will seek more papers from places like
Asia.
• US patent applications from Asian countries grew by 759% from ’89 to
’01. 116% growth in applications from the US. (A report from the Task Force on the Future of
American Innovation, www.futureofinnovation.org, 2/16/05)
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5. Trends in Submissions
• According to Elsevier, the volume of works authored/co-authored by
Chinese scientists in journals indexed by Web of Science have increased
by 2000% in the last quarter century.
• In the last 5 years, 11% of the papers published in material science and
more than 8% published in math and physics have come from China.
• The proportion of internationally indexed scientific articles from outside
North America and Western Europe grew from 25% in ‘83 to 50% in ’03,
representing over a million peer-reviewed papers. (Scholarly Communications Report, Vol 8,
No.11, Nov. 2004)
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6. The Problem – English
• Some anecdotal evidence from one of our customers:
– A Chinese University consortium shares that their professors produce 5,000
papers per year.
– About 2/3 would need re-working due to poor English.
• Recent request on Professional Editing Services web site:
“I have a scientific paper already corrected, but one of the reviewers found
our English very poor. The scientific editor found this paper full of
misspellings that he has not enough time to underline. After corrections, we
need a careful reading of our manuscript (3596 words, see attached
document) by a native English-speaking people for corrections if any.”
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7. The Problem – English
• Authors need help and struggle to find it.
• Affordability of service is a major issue.
• Publisher’s/Editor’s dilemma—sometimes the value of the paper cannot
be judged due to language.
– Reject.
– Spend lots of money editing.
• How to help??!!
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8. Author Support Services
• Some solutions emerging.
• Technology, once again, an enabler– language polishing services
accessible to the author via the web.
• BUT typically low awareness by author of available services.
• Some publishers trying to help by directing authors to language polishing
services via links on their author services sections of their websites.
– JBC www.jbc.org/misc/itoa.shtml
– ASPB www.plantphysiol.org/misc/ifora.shtml
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9. Author Support Services
• Service offering is pretty similar for all who offer it. Some offer a bit more,
others a bit less. In general, service focuses on:
– Correcting grammar, spelling, and punctuation
– Improving clarity and overall readability of author’s manuscript
– Providing author with some type of summary of changes made
• Major differences have to do with:
– Where editors are physically based
– Per page cost to author
– Methods of payment
– Editors’ areas of expertise
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10. Author Support Services
• Sampling of companies in the STM space who provide an online solution
include:
UK Based—www.internationalscienceediting.com/
Our portfolio of editors is made up entirely of native English speakers from
the British Isles with post-graduate qualifications spanning all the major
scientific disciplines.
Some authors may only wish to have the paper proofread for grammar and
spelling, while others may wish to have their paper edited in terms of
improving clarity of expression and overall readability.
US Based—
www.biomeditor.com/
www.biosciencewriters.com/
www.bostonbioedit.com
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11. Author Support Services
• Sampling of companies in the STM space who provide an online solution
include:
Asia Pacific Based—
India-based: www.asiascienceediting.com/
Japan-based: www.edanzediting.nl/
Australia-based: http://www.oleng.com.au/
Philippine-based: www.prof-editing.com
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12. SPi’s Solution
• SPi’s solution: www.prof-editing.com.
• Language polishing editors are Asia-based—both in the Philippines and
India.
• Dedicated project coordinator assigned to assist each author with all
steps in the process once the author has accepted the quote.
• SPi editor works to “polish” the manuscript—correct grammar, delete
redundancies, fix problem sentences, and sharpen vocabulary.
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13. SPi’s Solution
• Author is provided with an “Editorial Summary” as part of the service.
– Includes a written analysis of all major questions or changes ma de
– Accompanies the edited version—shows all track changes
– Author ultimately decides whether or not to accept or decline a particular
change made.
• Password-protected tracking system allows authors to check the status of
their manuscript at any point in the process.
• Flexible payment terms for authors.
– Credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover).
– Wire transfers.
– Institutional Purchase Orders (POs).
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14. SPi’s Solution
Turn Around Times
• Dependent upon the length of the manuscript.
If your document is: We return it within:
Less than 1,000 words 5 business days
Less than 5,000 words 10 business days
Less than 10,000 words 15 business days
Over 10,000 words Turnaround time to be
negotiated
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15. SPi’s Solution
• Service launched in a pilot phase in March 2005, with Elsevier. Started
actively promoting in September 2005, and have subsequently gone live
with several sites including:
– American Society for Clinical Oncologists.
– The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
– The American Society for Plant Biologists.
– Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
– Elsevier.
• 40% of new manuscripts received each month are from authors who
have previously used the service.
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16. SPi’s Solution
• Averaging 385 language-polished pages per month.
• To date, manuscripts that SPi has worked on have come from 32
different countries, including one from the US.
• Majority of authors using the service are from China (29%), Japan (11%),
Brazil (8%), and Spain (7%).
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17. The End
Questions?
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