Editing

Research

Editing
Research
The Author Editing Approach
to Providing Effective Support to
Writers of Research Papers

Valerie Matarese

Medford, New Jersey

First Printing
Editing Research: The Author Editing Approach to Providing Effective
Support to Writers of Research Papers
Copyright 2016 by Valerie Ann Matarese
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ai giovani che non si arrendono

Contents
Figures, Tables, and Sidebars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
Prologue: Birth, Metamorphosis, and Flight
of a Research Article. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii
Chapter 1 Aims and Challenges of Writing for Publication
in Todays Global Research Environment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Research Publishing Landscape. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The State of Scholarly Writing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
The Internationalization of Scholarly Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
English for Research Publication Purposes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Challenges of Research Writing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Writing in Isolation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Less Support from Publishers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Chapter 2 Editing in the Sciences and Other
Scholarly Disciplines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Editing Defined. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
The First Publishers and Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Levels of Editing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
A Temporal Classification of Editing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
vii

viii Editing Research

Chapter 3 Authors Editors: Partners in Communication at

the Service of Researchers and Readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
The First Authors Editors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Development of Author Editing for Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Do We Call Ourselves Authors Editors?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Chapter 4 Authors Editors in Action: A Qualitative
Research Foray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Research Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Expert Informants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Bibliographic Research and Integration with Qualitative
Research Findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Chapter 5 View from the Academy: The Delicate Position
of Editing Services among Needs and Concerns. . . . . . . . . . 75
Researchers Motivations to Seek Editing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Researchers Vocalization of the Editing Request. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Alternative Academic Views of Editors and Editing. . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Chapter 6 Editing Research Articles and Other Genres for
Publication in Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Journals. . . . . . . . . 91
Substantive Editing of Research Papers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Author Editing Requires Dialog with Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Added Value for ResearcherAuthors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Better Science Communication, Less Research Waste, and
Safeguarded Investments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
What Author Editing Is Not. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Acknowledgments and Editing Certificates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
The Impact of Editing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Contents ix

Chapter 7

Becoming and Being an Authors Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Career Path to Author Editing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Networks for Collegiate Exchange and Training Opportunities. . 127
Certificates of Achievement and Certification of Skills. . . . . . . . . 129
Educational Background. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Field Specialization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Multilingualism and Multiculturalism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Rapport with Clients. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Versatility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Chapter 8

The Editing Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Autonomous Editing (Freelance Editors). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Research Center Editing (In-house Editors). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Service Provider Editing (Editors Working Through an
Intermediary) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
The Business of Author Editing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Chapter 9

Editing Scholarly Genres for Other Media:

Common Goals but Unique Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Grant Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Lay Summaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Press Releases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Web Content and Other Digital Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Theses and Dissertations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Chapter 10 Synthesis and Projection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
What We Have Learned So Far. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
What We Have Yet to Learn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

x Editing Research

Advice to Authors Editors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Advice to Research Administrators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
The Future of Author Editing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Appendix 1. Membership Associations of Particular
Relevance to Authors Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Appendix 2. Peer-Reviewed Journals of Relevance to
Author Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

Figures, Tables, and Sidebars

Figures
1 Timeline of the founding of associations of relevance
to manuscript editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2 Temporal relations among the main stages of writing,
before and after peer review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Tables
1 Alignment of editing terms used in the booklet Levels of Edit
and defined by editors associations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2 Examples of lexical errors in scientific and technical
terminology made by EAL authors writing in English (L2) due
to linguistic interference by their native language (L1). . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3 Optimization of the wording of a sentence containing
a reference citation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Sidebars
1 Substantive editing can be done after an R&R decision even
when the reviewers limited their criticisms to language
problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
2 A successful outcome of developmental editing of serially
rejected manuscripts requires the authors collaboration and
trust in the editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3 Pre-review of a manuscript by an authors editor can reveal
the need for developmental editing, ultimately resulting in
a publishable research article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4 Authors editors have ethical standards for research and can
impart these values to novice researcherauthors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
5 Main points to consider in setting up an institutional editing
service. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

xi

Foreword
When I chose medical editing as my full-time contribution ... I entered
an occupation that W. Albert Noyes Jr. recently said is a way to lose old
friends and to make no new ones. True enough, an editor is paid to
find fault.
Richard Miner Hewitt, AM, MD1
Publication is the final stage of research. Of the people involved in the publication process, most visible are the authors, journal editors, peer reviewers, and journal production staff. Less visible, if present at all, are authors
editors, who work for and with authors to make scientific manuscripts
more readable, more accurate, more complete, and more concise before
submittal to a journal. In my area of interest, medical publicationsin
which evidence-based medicine is literature-based medicinewe also
strive to document research designs and activities according to standards
that allow the validity of the research to be properly assessed.
Authors editors routinely identify and respond to everything from
misspellings to scientific misconduct; from poorly written sentences to
poorly constructed data displays; and from unfocused discussions to
unfounded conclusions. In addition, an often-unappreciated truth is that
author editing is usually the shortest, least expensive, and arguably the
most important stage of the publication process. The published article
is often the only record of the research and is usually the most lasting.
Once published, the article is in the literature forever, preserving any
mistakes, omissions, and inconsistencies for all timewith the authors
names on it.
Whereas authors focus on content, authors editors focus on presentation. Unlike literary editors, who try to improve a text without trespassing
on the authors words or compromising the authors voice, technical
editors are usually charged with meeting the information needs of readers rather than the personal needs of authors. As my mentor used to say,
Tom, if you dont understand it, the colonel never will. If you dont clarify
the meaning now, it wont get done.
xiii

xiv Editing Research

In general, and with the exception of some journal editors, authors editors are the only group paid specifically to review a scientific manuscript
at length. Peer reviewers are generally rushed and uncompensated, and
production editors rarely have time to do more than correct formatting
and grammatical errors. Skilled authors editors, on the other hand, are
given the time to critically appraise a manuscript; to study it, dissect it, and
reconstitute it into a coherent record of the research.
Many years ago, the Society for Technical Communication published a
Code of Conduct for its members. Among other points in the Code was
that technical writers and editors are The bridge between those who create ideas and those who use them. That is, they neither create nor use the
information they process; they are somewhere between. In fact, authors
editors are often called professionals without portfolios. They are specialists with backgrounds, employment settings, and job expectations so
diverse that many do not have a clear sense of the history, extent, and value
of the profession or even that they are part of one.
Editing Research changes everything. In this excellent book, Valerie
Matarese describes for the first time the place of author editing in the ecology of scientific publishing. Several books have been written about author
editing, many by authors editors, but this is the first book about authors
editors. After decades of helping to prepare the literature, authors editors
themselves are now represented in the literature, and admirably so.
The breadth of Editing Research is impressive. On one hand, some topics are as narrow as the origins of terms such as press, edit, and publish. In a profession that prides itself on using language precisely, it is
embarrassing to learn that the title of editor refers to more than a dozen
job descriptions and that the same job description is labelled with a dozen
titles. By tracing the origins of these terms, however, Editing Research
shows how they evolved and differentiated over the centuries. In so doing,
it explains, if not excuses, this apparent lack of precision.
On the other hand, some topics in the book are as wide as the globalization of science and scientific publishing. For better or worse, English has
become the language of science worldwide, posing an additional burden on
nonnative English speakers who must publish in English-language journals
to participate in the scientific community and to advance professionally.
The book explores the implications of this new market for authors editors
and thoughtfully summarizes the problems facing authors unfamiliar with
Western publishing conventions, as well as with the use of English.

Foreword xv

The depth of Editing Research is also impressive. The descriptions of

the types or levels of editing are thorough, as is the discussion comparing
the strengths and weaknesses of the taxonomies considered. These taxonomies provide a structure for understanding the various tasks that comprise
author editing, as well as the education and training needed to accomplish
them. In so doing, they also provide the context for a fascinating account
of the history and development of the profession in the Western world.
The literature on author editing is surprisingly large, but it is scattered
throughout hundreds of sources, such that the occasional encounter with
an article rarely indicates the volume of information available. Nevertheless, Editing Research does a commendable job of summarizing the most
important of these sources.
Finally, the many themes of the book are brought together in a discussion
of the current trends in author editing and what lies ahead for the profession.
In sum, Editing Research is an outstanding book that will be the definitive work on author editing for some time to come.
Tom Lang, MA
An authors editor since 1975
Kirkland, Washington
March, 2016
Tom Lang is Principal, Tom Lang Communications and Training International,
and author of both How to Write, Publish, and Present in the Health Sciences and
How to Report Statistics in Medicine. A Past President of the Council of Science Editors, he is also a Fellow of the American Medical Writers Association and Treasurer
of the World Association of Medical Editors. Visit tomlangcommunications.com
for more information.

Note
1. Hewitt RM. The Physician-Writers Book. Tricks of the Trade of Medical Writing.
Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1957, page 311. Richard Miner Hewitt,
AM, MD, was Senior Consultant (an authors editor) and later the Director of the
Section of Publications at the Mayo Clinic for many years and President of the
American Medical Writers Association from 1955 to 1956. He first articulated
the criteria for authorship used in the original definition of authorship issued
by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors in 1991 (see page 315
of the above-cited book).

Preface
Thousands and thousands of people today are editing research articles
before these texts undergo peer review and, ultimately, publication. These
editors support a large but unknown portion of the worlds 79 million academic researchers who aim to publish their studies in one of the
approximately 28,000 English-language scholarly and scientific journals.
The editors do not work for the journals or their publishers, however; they
work for the authors of the manuscripts.
Editors of manuscripts form an ill-defined group. They may be employed
by research institutes or work as freelancers, independently or through an
intermediary. They may view editing as a temporary occupation or a fulltime career. They probably have a university degree, but it may be in a hard
or soft science, a language, translation, communication, journalism, or any
other field of study. They may have no specific preparation for editing, or
they may have learned editing skills through mentoring, formal study, or
self-education. And they may spend anywhere from 3 to 30 hours on a
particular text, making minor changes to grammar or substantially revising
the language and, perhaps, the content.
This motley assemblage of editors is a relatively new phenomenon in the
350-year-long history of scholarly and scientific publishing. Only in the past
1020 years have global editing services been created, engaging hundreds if
not thousands of editors to process hundreds of thousands of manuscripts
each year. This proliferation in the provision of editing services is in response
to the enormous growth in global research output on the one hand and
the reduction or elimination of publisher-provided editorial services on the
other. It responds to the massification of academic research with the massification of a knowledge-intensive service. And although it usefully helps the
global body of researchers publish their work in English, it also takes advantage of the precarious position of many highly educated personsoften toting PhDswho accept to edit, in many cases, for incommensurate fees and
at stressful paces in todays distorted knowledge economy.
But, as I have discovered, the editing of research manuscripts has a
longer, more dignified history that continues, quietly and inconspicuously,
xvii

xviii Editing Research

into the present day. For more than 50 years, earnest and principled
editors have been supporting researchers as they write for publication
through direct personal interactions based on open dialog, a mutual
understanding of roles, and respect for publication ethics. These are true
professionals. Whether employed by research institutes or working independently, they facilitate the communication of research by bringing to the
collaboration editorial expertise, linguistic skill, familiarity with genre, and
disciplinary knowledge. Their goal is to help authors produce a clear and
accurate text that effectively communicates the research message to journal
editors, peer reviewers, and readers of all kinds. They work with loyalty
to their authors, not to journal editors, publishers, or editing service
providers. As such, they call themselves authors editors and their work,
author editing.
Author editing is a profession that originated in the United States.
While not exclusive to research communication (the close relationships
between some literary editors and authors of American fiction are the paradigm of author editing), it is in the research setting that author editing
evolved from an art to a profession. Author editing for research emerged
in the immediate post-World War II period and later matured in continental Europe. Although not widely recognized by outsiders as a profession, author editing rests its professional status on a solid foundation: a
long history and development, a large (albeit obscure) body of literature,
eloquent opinion leaders, and associations providing opportunities for the
continuing professional development of their members. Over the years,
authors editorsthe practitioners of this professionhave elaborated an
approach to working with researcherauthors that respects authorship,
educates about academic writing and publishing, and serves science.
The author editing approach has never been fully told, and few authors
editors are aware of the history, knowledge, and experiences that underpin
it. A few years ago, when I was editing the multi-authored volume Supporting Research Writing: Roles and Challenges in Multilingual Settings, I agreed
to co-write a chapter on author editing1 with Joy Burrough-Boenisch, an
authors editor who, about a decade earlier, had earned a PhD in applied
linguistics for her study of English academic writing by Dutch scholars. In that chapter, we set out to define and describe author editing in
non-anglophone contexts, by discussing the different types of editing an
authors editor does and examining the practicalities of collaborating with
researchers. We wrote from personal experience and the shared experiences
of colleagues.

Preface xix

Since the publication of Supporting Research Writing, several factors have

motivated me to better investigate and document the work of authors editors and their contribution to research communication. Our chapter, no
matter how informative, had low visibility in the target readershipother
editors, applied linguists who study scholarly communication, research
administrators who make decisions about buying editing services, and
the burgeoning community of academics and publishers concerned about
the quality and reproducibility of the reported research. Moreover, I was
observing that true authors editors were being confused with proofreaders
and amateur language correctors on the one hand, and ghostwriters and
essay mill services on the other. Proponents of ways to reduce research
waste were advocating novel solutions that were none other than what
authors editors were regularly doing. Even some editors of scholarly journals expressed concerns that authors editors may cover up plagiarism or
gloss over fraud.
Wishing to raise the profile of authors editors and correct the misconceptions about our work, I felt the need for a book specifically about the
profession of author editing. Thinking (erroneously) that little of substance
had been written on the topic, I designed a book based on interviews with
exemplary colleagues. To illustrate the range of skills and approaches to
editing the research literature, I purposely chose editors having different
educational backgrounds, working in different countries and occupational
contexts, and serving researchers in different disciplines. In this manner,
I hoped to portray authors editors in a more complete and balanced way
than my own personal experiences allowed, and better respond to the
needs of editors working in settings other than my own.
While preparing for the interviews, I began to explore what literature
there might be about author editing, and I had a wonderful surprise. My
bibliographic research uncovered a wealth of informationessays and editorials, meeting reports, interviews, proposals, and reports of single-center
experiencespublished in an astonishing variety of places. From the Journal of the American Podiatry Association to the Bulletin of the American
Medical Writers Association, from Kntj-versttare (in English!) to the
short-lived Journal of Research Communication Studies, and from out-ofprint books to unpublished theses, I pieced together the history of author
editing and traced the development of an ethical, educational, and effective approach to editing the research literature.
The book you are reading integrates the findings of bibliographic
research with the insight gathered from the interviews. It speaks to all

xx Editing Research

parties concerned with how researchers communicate their discoveries in

the scholarly and scientific literature, namely editors of all ranks, directors of graduate study programs and research centers, and applied linguists
interested in scholarly communication. It is meant to serve as a guide to
persons interested in a career in author editing and to research administrators contemplating setting up an in-house editing service. Finally, it is
offered as an invitation to dialog between authors editors and these other
categories, so that already existing expertise can be exploited for the benefit
of researchers and research centers and in the interest of the advancement
of knowledge.

Note
1. Burrough-Boenisch, Joy, and Valerie Matarese. 2013. The authors editor: working with authors to make drafts fit for purpose. In Supporting Research Writing:
Roles and Challenges in Multilingual Settings, edited by Valerie Matarese, 173189.
Oxford: Chandos Publishing

Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the critical participation of the eight expert informantsin alphabetical order, Simon Bartlett,
Susan Kaplan, Alan Lounds, Katharine OMoore-Klopf, Sunita Patterson,
Jackie Senior, Carlotta Shearson, and Marcia Triunfol Elblink. To these
colleagues, I express my sincere gratitude for their openness and willingness to share their precious time, knowledge, and personal experiences
with me and the books readers.
I also wish to thank the myriad persons who assisted me with the
research for this book. I cannot name all those who kindly responded to
my requests for articles and information on ResearchGate.net and discussion fora such as those of CSE and EASE. A particular thanks goes to
those who scanned or mailed me copies of non-digitalized literature or
who sent me relevant articles I hadnt even requested: Michael S. Altus, Joy
Burrough-Boenisch, Margaret Cooter, Paola de Castro, Dominic Fuccillo,
Barbara Gastel, Sheryl Hinkkanen, Tom Lang, Maeve OConnor, Serena
Sangiorgi, Karen Shashok, Rachel Spassiani (AMWA), Bruce W. Speck,
LeAnn Stee, Joan Turner, and Robyn Woodward-Kron. I acknowledge
with gratitude the free access to articles kindly offered by the American
Podiatric Medical Association and the American Medical Writers Association. Elke Bartholomus and Joy Burrough-Boenisch are thanked for
providing examples of linguistic interference.
This book was researched, written, and illustrated entirely with free,
open source software in the Mageia Linux distribution. To the open source
community, my thanks and appreciation.
Chapters of this volume have benefited from being critically reviewed
by the informants and by Joy Burrough-Boenisch, Tom Lang, and Karen
Shashok, who all helped me avoid conceptual blunders, stylistic infelicities, and second-language interference. Naturally, the remaining errors are
my own.
Finally, I thank John B. Bryans at Information Today, Inc. for having
suggested the format for this book and for believing in my ability to carry
out the research and the writing.
xxi

C h a p t e r

10

Synthesis and Projection

What We Have Learned So Far
Author editing for research is a profession that, although not officially recognized, is established in the eyes of its practitioners. It is a profession with
a raison dtre, a history and development, a solid body of literature, membership associations, and eloquent opinion leaders. Its practitioners are
aware of the ethical and professional implications of this work and consequently set high personal standards or even personal codes. Our half-century of literature resonates on the theme of ethical, professional conduct. If
we consider that this literature is difficult to obtain and unknown to most
practitioners, while at the same time new generations of authors editors
continue to reach similar conclusions on their own about what constitutes
good professional practice, then we can conclude that the author editing
approachits methods, practices, and attitudesis by now validated.1
And although there is no single university degree or agreed set of entry
qualifications to the profession, the aptitudes, skills, and competences of
an authors editor can be, and have been, enumerated.
We are a mixed bunch, but through our different ways we achieve a
common goal. We may be trained in languages, communication, or sciences, and we work with researchers who, in different ways, need help
with linguistic style, English rhetoric, text organization, data presentation,
technical reporting, and publishing strategies, for example. We each bring
to the job a unique combination of skills, specialist knowledge, and hardearned experience appropriate for the particular disciplinary, geolinguistic,
and occupational context in which we work, but we all agree that a successful outcome of our collaboration with researchers is based on a mutual
understanding of roles, honest and open dialog, and equal footing. We
may serve as scribes, but we are not secretaries; we may act as peers, but we
have no decisional power.
These are the characteristics that define author editing. Remove any one
of these key features, and you have something else. Remove the dialog and
189

190 Editing Research

interaction, and you have a language-polishing service. Remove the high

ethical standards and concern for publishing norms, and you have ghostwriting. Remove the deep knowledge, skill, and years of experience, and you
have an amateurs pastime. Replace the equal footing with the power of editorial decision-making, and you usurp researchers of their rights over their
content and potentially compromise the accuracy of the published work.
Authors editors as a whole have a low profile, for various reasons. The
nature of our work with the words of others selects for persons who are
content with having a low profile. The work we do and its impact are not
easily quantified, so we earn modest fees or salaries that can be disproportionately low for our knowledge, training, and output. Differently from
our clients, who must publish lest they perish, we have little time for, and
little gain from, writing about our experiences. These factors reinforce the
low status. As a result, our occupation remains unknown and incomprehensible to those who benefit, directly or indirectly, by our good work.
Our clientsacademic researchersare little informed about different
types of editing and different roles of editors. We are invisible to highranking academics who concern themselves with the quality and reproducibility of reported research. And we are misunderstood by scholars of
academic writing, who study our work from their own point of view and
claim that little is known.
Nonetheless, our work has a positive impact in many ways. By working to improve the communication of research, we facilitate knowledge
creation and help reduce research waste. By sharing with researchers the
burden of writing and revising, and preempting complex revisions after
peer review, we save researchers time, thereby increasing their productivity and the efficient use of their research funds. By supporting novice
authors in their writing endeavors, we can help safeguard the reputation of
research teams and institutions. By incorporating education into our work
practices, through workshops and didactic editing, we contribute to the
training of scholars and improve the quality of their work. Finally, by collaborating with EAL authors, we reduce the language and cultural barriers
to the exchange of knowledge.

What We Have Yet to Learn

Just who are we and what are we doing, anyway? was the provocative
title of an article by Tom Lang, published in AMWA Journal (Lang 2009).
Although he mainly addressed medical writers, the journals readership, he

Synthesis and Projection 191

focused his attention on the preparation of research articles and frequently

included editing in his discussion. Hence, many of the issues he raised are
valid for authors editors, too.
To start, Lang argued that if we cannot measure our productivity and
prove our value added, we may be administratively invisible and thought
to be unnecessary. The low profile of authors editors has been repeatedly
mentioned in this volume. For authors editors, the risk of invisibility is
that our high-quality, individualized work with authors be confused with
quick, cheap, and anonymous language polishing. The Lang essay had two
purposes. First, it explored areas of research that still needed to be addressed
for the professions of medical writing and editing to thrive (or simply
survive). Six areas were identified: measuring productivity; measuring
added value; defining the skills and knowledge needed to work effectively;
identifying the innate talents and aptitudes that make someone suited for
the task; establishing theory about our work based on solid evidence; and
reconstructing the history of our profession. On this last point, Lang, in
his book How to Write, Publish, and Present in the Health Sciences, outlined
key events in the development of medical writing, from antiquity, through
the age of great physician writers (e.g. Galen, Ibn Sina, Vesalius), and
up into the period of formalized medical writing which began with the
publication of the first scientific journals in the mid-1600s (Lange 2009a).
To that extensive history I add my own reconstruction of the more recent
development of editing, as presented in the early chapters of this volume.
As for measuring editors productivity and the value that editing adds,
this volume has cited a few pertinent works but more research is needed,
especially in non-anglophone contexts. How this research might be conducted was addressed in the second part of Langs essay, which serves as
a guide to anyone interested in studying these practical aspects. Indeed,
this is research that editors themselves can carry out; one need not have
an academic appointment. The need for editors themselves to document
their added value was raised several years before Lang published his essay,
at the 2004 AMWA conference. At that time, Donald D. Samulack and
Janet R. Davies (editors at St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital) discussed how the return on investment (ROI) of editing services might be
determined. According to the speakers, It is not easy to determine the
ROI for editing services because many of the benefits to employers are
qualitative rather than quantitative. How can you overcome this obstacle?
Show value; avoid isolation; make friends in high places; advertise your
successes; document, segment, and understand your client base; and be

192 Editing Research

strategic and proactive in making your workflow processes and client base
transparent (Cozzarin 2004).
As for defining the skills, knowledge, talents, and aptitudes that make
a successful authors editor, a substantial amount of information is already
available, and the qualitative research reported in this volume adds to that
body of knowledge. Additional research from the viewpoint of applied
linguistics, continuing on from the first research thesis already written
(Burrough-Boenisch 2002; see Chapter 5), will provide insight into editing processes. Altogether, a continuous, systematic effort to document the
work of authors editorsthe business, practical, linguistic, and interpersonal aspectswill enable us to define the best practices for supporting
researchers when they write for publication.

Advice to Authors Editors

Angela Cochran, president of CSE, has valuable advice for individual
authors editors and for the editing community. Writing in the associations January 2016 newsletter, she advised us to: Keep on engaging. Even
if you cant make it to [your favorite associations annual conference] this
year, ... take advantage of at least one meeting, seminar, or networking
event related to your field. The more we continue to learn, the more we can
contribute as a group. By engaging, we can resist the isolation inherent to
the settings in which many of us work. We can learn about new subjects,
develop new skills, find solutions to unexpected challenges, update our
knowledge, and refine our linguistic competence.

Mentor and Be Mentored

We have much to gain by engaging, but we also have much to give. In
particular, we can share our experiences and knowledge with colleagues,
by contributing to discussion groups, presenting at meetings, and helping
to create peer-generated CPD opportunities within associations for editors
(Appendix 1). We can provide guidance and orientation to young persons
who are considering a career in editing. If we are contacted by someone
who says, for example, I have a PhD in biology; a professor asked me to
write some articles for him ... what do you suggest?, we can introduce
them to the world of publication ethics, recommend articles to read and
associations to join, and even follow up after some time to see how they
have fared. We can cultivate relationships with junior authors editors, to
help them grow their business, improve the quality of their work, and

Synthesis and Projection 193

contribute to our profession too. For example, we can invite them to join
an association and to contribute as a volunteer, and we can encourage
them to reflect on their work, talk about it at meetings, and write about
it for journals pertinent to our field (Appendix 2). These are the ways that
some of my informants were mentored by their seniors when they were
just starting out a few decades ago. Mature authors editors today can act
similarly, passing the wisdom on and helping to keep our profession alive.
Editors who are just starting out can tap into this wisdom by actively
looking for a mentor. As Katharine OMoore-Klopf explains, Although
there are fewer in-house publishing jobs now than before, it is still easy
enough to find a mentor via online communities and professional associations. If you start asking questions, you will find people willing to
answerthose are the ones who you want as mentors. An informal mentoring arrangement is just fine today. These informal mentors can provide
guidance on career advancement and on how to deal with clients, build and
grow a business, and achieve a good work-life balance. They are unlikely,
however, to check ones editing work because of the time required; for this
kind of feedback, a more formal (paying) arrangement is required.

Be Business-Wise
Authors editors who work autonomously must always consider the business aspects of running an editing service. Alan Lounds has clear advice. If
you wish to go into editing, he says, price it right, pace yourself, specialize, have direct contacts with clients (do not work through an intermediary), and establish personal relationships with your clients.
Marcia Triunfol Elblink elaborates on Alans first point. Be very clear
to yourself and to clients what is included and what is not included in the
fee. Accurate pricing is critical because clients have limited funds and
time, and some manuscripts may require an exorbitant amount of revision; if a proper balance is not struck, either clients will not be satisfied or
the editor will not earn enough for the service offered. To facilitate billing
and increase the chances of getting paid, Marcia has a novel suggestion:
Treat editing and billing as separate activities done by different persons. If
you work alone, create an imaginary digital persona (e.g. a unique email
address at your domain) and delegate to this colleague all discussions of
money issues with clients, including follow-up in the case of non-payment.
Alans last pointestablishing relationships with authorshas been
addressed by Katharine OMoore-Klopf (2014). Writing on the blog of
the American Society of Business Publications Editors, she explained that

194 Editing Research

working with authors is an arena where we all need to improve our skills
to help illustrate our worth. The benefits are that authors become easier
to work with, the quality of their writing and the published texts improve,
and the editors business expands. But, she warns, dont just hope that your
clients and employers will notice on their own that [you] produce desirable results. Show them. Give presentations, talk individually with them ...
Write blog posts and posts for LinkedIn. Tweet ... Make it clear that youre
the one behind the good outcomes, but show explicitly how those outcomes
benefit the specific client or employer (OMoore-Klopf 2014).
For research center editors, establishing good relationships with employers
is just as important as doing so with authors. As Lang, Samulack, and Davies
argued (Lang 1999b; Cozzarin 2004), authors editors working in these settings need to proactively show their value. They should also convince their
employers to replace them when they retire, and to prepare for this change in
advance. As Jackie Senior has observed, a successful transition between a retiring editor and a replacement requires a training period of 12 years to allow
the trainee to absorb the best practices already in place. Ensuring this continuity will avoid service interruptions and loss of productivity in the unit.

Take Care
Author editing is a caring profession. We take care of our authors manuscripts and help with all things editorial. We must also take care of our
business and ourselves, because as independent operators (irrespective of
our work setting) no employer or union is looking out for our wellbeing.
We can also take care of our profession by maintaining high standards and
by helping to raise its profile. In particular, we can help raise awareness of
author editing among journal editors by being active members of associations that connect editors serving different roles, such as CSE and EASE.
We can also help increase understanding of our work among applied linguists by writing, blogging, and joining associations such as MET that
welcome a range of language professionals.
Authors editors, like any other occupational group, are also often called
upon to care for elderly or seriously ill family members. This responsibility is often a source of personal and financial stress, requiring one to
cope with the emotional strain while juggling new duties with less time
for work. In a thoughtful essay, Elizabeth Whalen, a freelance editor, and
Barbara Gastel, a physician specialized in biomedical writing and science
journalism (and, when the article was published, also editor of Science
Editor), discussed how some CSE members have coped with caregiving

Synthesis and Projection 195

(Whalen and Gastel 2001). They observed that science editors have particular characteristics that enable them to deal effectively with this role,
including communication skills; science literacy; proficiency in information-gathering, planning, and organization; adeptness with paperwork;
flexibility; internal motivation; and ability to identify small changes that
can make big improvements. Their essay offers advice and strategies that
editors, both employed and autonomous, can follow when the need to care
for a family member arises.

Come from the Science

This section would not be complete without highlighting the advice Susan
Eastwood gave during her Swanberg Award Lecture in 2003. Although the
advice was addressed to young people considering a career as a research
center authors editor, I believe it is valuable to all authors editors, even
today. Here, I highlight its most salient features:
First empower yourself. Then empower your colleagues.
Never stop learning ways to communicate more effectively, and
keep in mind that the basis of successful communication is a
commitment to engage fully in listeningin conversation, to
discern a speakers meaning as the speaker understands it; in
addressing an audience or readership, to discern their needs as
they perceive them.
Get an advanced degreeor a couple of them. It will help you
and the researchers you work with if the degrees are in English
language and a scientific discipline or a related combination of
disciplines. Courses in teaching English as a second language
are valuable in working as an authors editoreven when the
author is a native English speaker.
Learn statistics ... really.
Join the research teamas early as possible in the course of the
investigation being planned.
Remind researchers about their research responsibilities in lowkey ways. Young researchers are seldom deceitfulthey may not
have been told about some of the rules.
Go to open scientific and medical sessions [...] and guest
lectures. You will learn about your authors individually personal
modes of thinking from a different perspective and learn more
about their ongoing scientific work.

196 Editing Research

Most of all, come from the sciencethat is to say, in any

difficult situation, let authors know that your interest, above
all else, is in communicating the science clearly, accurately,
honestly. Where an ethical point is at issue, let authors know
that, above all else, your interest is that the science not be
compromised. (Eastwood 2003)

Advice to Research Administrators

To directors of research institutes, heads of department, research development professionals, and every one else holding administrative roles in the
research setting, this volume has one clear message: hire an authors editor.
In other words, provide your researchers with an embedded author
editing service that employs one or more authors editors who are specialized in your research topics and who will sit down with your researchers
and walk through their manuscripts line by line, section by section. Save
your researchers from the lost time and budgetary stress of searching for
an autonomous (freelance) editor to hire on a manuscript-by-manuscript
basis. Broaden the range of core facilities available to your research staff, by
including highly skilled manuscript editing and expert consulting about
publishing within your current array of specialized services, i.e. treat editorial work just as you do technical support, statistical guidance, illustration,
database management, and grant administration. Recognize that writing
for publication is a fundamental step in the research processthe last one,
often the least expensive one, but not for these reasons any less critical than
the others.
Plan your in-house editing service carefully, starting with its scope.
Define the institutional clientele to be servedideally a single department, possibly a single college or institute, but not an entire university
and decide on the range of genres (text types) to be edited. Based on the
expected numbers of users and documents they are likely to produce in a
year, determine whether one authors editor or a team of editors is required
to handle the workload. Identify what related services will be offered
training workshops, one-on-one coaching, website editing, book publishing? With these features in mind, locate similar editing services at other
research centersworldwide if necessaryand visit them. Discover how
they function and what their successes and critical issues are.
Then, choose your authors editors wisely. Issues to consider when
hiring an editor (or other language professional) have been addressed in

Synthesis and Projection 197

guidelines prepared by Mediterranean Editors and Translators (MET 2015)

and are summarized here. First, be sure to engage an editor who specializes
in the topics and genres relevant to your department. Specialization can
come from education, prior work experience, or professional training; an
advanced degree in the field is useful but not essential. If you need other
language services, such as translation or interpreting, you will probably need
to hire more than one person, because each of these language professions
requires particular skills and knowledge. A native speaker is ideal, but do not
automatically rule out candidates who are near-native speakers of English:
a near-native speaker with appropriate skills and subject specialization can
be a good choice if you cannot find a suitably skilled and knowledgeable
native speaker. And, if the working language of your research center is not
English, be sure to hire an editor who also is fluent in that language so that
manuscript conferences, in-text dialog, and even small talk can be done
bilingually. Finally, to understand the quality and professionalism that a
candidate will bring to the job, ask for samples of completed work, names
of satisfied clients, and evidence of membership in associations that provide
continuing professional development for editors; you can also ask if the candidate has taken courses in editing or has been certified, but be aware that
existing certification programs do not address the skills that editors need
to work in non-anglophone settings. Before hiring, you may wish to commission one or a few assignments with the editor, in a freelance capacity, to
assess the quality of the service and your ability to work together as a team.
If your department is too small to have its own full-time editor, one
option is to establish a regular collaboration with a local freelance editor
on a part-time basis. If you allow the editor access to your departmental
meetings and your library, and encourage the development of personal
interactions with your researchers, it may be possible to reap all the benefits of having an embedded departmental editor.
A final piece of advice is offered by Jackie Senior, who says Having
an in-house editor, alongside technicians, statisticians, and illustrators, is
what makes a good department become an excellent one. Her experience
in the Department of Genetics is proof of that statement.

The Future of Author Editing

Author editing can be an immensely satisfying career. Numerous aspects
of our work provide personal and professional fulfillment, as revealed
by an informal survey conducted by Barbara Gastel (2011). About 10

198 Editing Research

manuscript editors, each with 1030 years experience, responded to the

survey, enabling Gastel to summarize as follows: sources of satisfaction and
motivation regarding science editing included the abundance of intellectual stimulation; the opportunity for lifelong learning; the chance to help
others and contribute to science and society; interactions with researchers,
fellow editors, and others; and enjoyment of the editorial process itself
(Gastel 2011). Authors editors in particular can gain satisfaction from
teaching their authorclients and colleagues, collaborating with research
teams and receiving their feedback, dealing with a variety of topics, and
working independently.
There are, however, downsides to author editing that must be carefully
managed. Editors who receive a relentless supply of requests to edit complex manuscripts are at risk of exhaustion, which may manifest as mental
fatigue or computer use-related physical ailments. One solution to avoiding burnout and staying motivated is to seek job variety, by editing nonresearch genres (e.g. corporate literature, charity communications, patient
materials, fiction) or by offering new services (e.g. journal management,
language coaching). These new services have the added benefit of helping
refresh and expand ones clientele.
A second source of concern comes from market factors that are favoring large editing service providers over microentrepreneurial, autonomous
authors editors. Now that the main academic publishers have created
their own editing services or have made arrangements with editing service providers, researchers are flooded with offers for editing and language
polishing; even journals R&R peer review decisions are accompanied by
recommendations for editing services. Some providers offer group deals
allowing a department or entire university to purchase, at a discount,
vouchers to cover the editing of tens of, or a hundred, research papers
over the course of a year. As a result, autonomous authors editors risk
having their businesses being choked off by the tentacles of large editing
firms with a global reach. For the moment, there are many editing service
providers competing among themselves, but we can expect, based on what
is happening in the academic publishing industry (Larivire et al. 2015;
Munroe 2007), that these providers will merge into a few, larger and more
powerful companies. If they attract the interest of big finance, we may see
them offering editing at rates so low that no tax-paying autonomous editor
can compete. By analogy with current worldwide events in the taxi industry (Morozov 2016) and dental industry (Armstrong 2015; Pierce 2012),
this worrisome prospect cannot be disregarded.

Synthesis and Projection 199

Another market challenge comes from the trend for universities to

invite tenders for editing, proofreading, translation, and interpreting
services (sometimes all in one bid!). Although intended to streamline
procurement and reduce administrative work for the university, these
procedures create a level of bureaucracy that is much too complex and
time-consuming to be worth an editors effort to apply for single editing
assignments, and they may actually exclude experienced editors by setting
misguided evaluation criteria (Matarese 2013c). When the procurement is
for an entire university, only large editing service providers can realistically
bid. If the selection procedure prioritizes the lowest bidder or the firm that
handles the most disciplines or languages, the university in the end risks
paying more for poorer quality than when individual language professionals are hired on a case-by-case basis. Although there is anecdotal evidence
of such university-wide contracts, it is not clear if researchers with their
own funding retain the liberty to choose editors or if they are obliged to
use the contracted services.
A related issue is the emergence of deceitful author service providers
that prey on researchers publications budgets by offering shoddy editing
services, bogus research article writing, and promises to help authors get
published, including authorship for sale (Cochran 2015). In response to
these concerns, efforts have begun to form the Coalition for Responsible
Publication Resources2 which would define the author services industry
(i.e. all those services that come into play before publication, such as illustration, database management, translation, and editing) and would set
standards of practice, verify quality, and conduct annual audits. Validated
service providers would then be able to display a web-dynamic badge,
which potential clients would seek as evidence of quality and ethical behavior. If this initiative takes off, autonomous authors editors will have to sign
up and pay dues (assuming they are not excluded from participating).
Technological advances in publishing also present challenges for
authors editors. Will clean-up macros develop to the point that human
language editing is no longer needed? Perhaps, but it is also possible that
technology will create new niches for authors editors. For example, there
is growing excitement over the possibility that the current standard for the
research article, namely the discrete, static document based on the print
model, will be replaced by a living document that can be continuously
amended and expanded (Shanahan 2015) or an interactive p
ublication
that contains embedded media elements (Thoma et al. 2010). If these
innovations become widely adopted, editors may need to learn to work at

200 Editing Research

the interface between content and code (e.g. Java and XML). Furthermore,
the use of new media forms of communication (e.g. blogs, tweets) will be
increasingly common among researchers as they carve out for themselves
a professional online profile (needed today to secure funding and be promoted). Although these informal genres may not be thought to require
editing, EAL scholars venturing into the blogosphere may appreciate the
support of an authors editor in handling a new style of writing.
The research article itself is evolving in response to demands for greater
transparency, openness, and reproducibility. Changes already being put
into place at some journals include more detailed methods sections (e.g.
publication of study protocols) and data sharing (e.g. depositing data in
approved repositories). A modular set of standards, called Transparency
and Openness Promotion guidelines, was recently developed to help journal editors understand and implement open reporting practices (Nosek
et al. 2015). What is needed, however, are complementary changes in
academia. This point was emphasized by Macleod and colleagues in their
introduction to The Lancet series on research waste:
[I]nstead of being judged on the basis of the impact factors
of the journals in which their work is published, academics
might be judged on the methodological rigour and full dissemination of their research, the quality of their reports, and
the reproducibility of their findings. If these factors were to
contribute substantially to promotion, funding, and publication decisions, institutions might even ... pay more attention
to continuation of professional development and appraisal of
the research workforce. (Macleod et al. 2014)
The situation they envisage presents clear opportunities for authors
editors. We can only hope that this heightened attention to the problem of research waste presages a return to the employment of authors
editors within research departments. A return, that is, in the few countries where embedded authors editors were once common (e.g. United
States, N
etherlands, Finland), but also the spread of this practice to non-
anglophone countries where researchers have great need for writing assistance but currently receive little institutional support or understanding.
These countries include the main research-intensive nations of Europe
(France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom) and Asia (Japan,
South Korea), as well as emerging research nations such as Brazil, China,

Synthesis and Projection 201

and India, but also Iran, Turkey, and others. The growth of research and
research publishing in China, including the creation of new Englishlanguage journals, is particularly impressive. This trend poses an immediate need for Chinese-fluent authors editors, and invites us to ponder
the possibility that the rhetoric of research, as we know it today, is ready
for metamorphosis.

Notes
1. On this point, I acknowledge Karen Shashok for having eloquently put into words,
in informal discussions, an idea that was germinating in my mind. Her expression
is presented here in somewhat paraphrased form.
2. www.rprcoalition.org

About the Author

Valerie Matarese is an autonomous authors
editor. Her main activity is author editing
in the biomedical sciences for researchers
in Italy, where for almost 20 years she has
worked in sole proprietorship. Additionally, she offers workshops in scientific writing and teaches a 40-hour graduate-level
course on how to write a research article in
the biomolecular sciences. She also occasionally provides copy editing, developmental editing, and science writing.
Born in New York, Valerie trained in biochemistry and cell and molecular biology at Cornell University and the University of Minnesota (culminating in a PhD in 1990), and worked as a researcher in university settings
and at multinational firms on both coasts of the United States and in Italy.
While working at an Italian pharmaceutical company, she was exposed
to the challenges of writing (and speaking) about science in a second language, and became enticed about the possibility of using her academic
English skills to support Italian researchers in their quests to publish. She
thus began a career in editing, starting with serving as freelance copy editor for several English-language medical journals produced in Italy and
published by Springer. When market forces caused journal copy editing to
be outsourced offshore, Valerie changed her focus from editing for publishers to editing directly for researchers, helping them make their draft
manuscripts fit for publication in peer-reviewed research journalsdoing,
in other words, author editing.
Throughout her editing career, Valerie has been concerned with the
quality of scientific reporting and how to improve it locally. In 2008, she
published a study that examined the relationship between the quality of
biomedical research journals and the editorial leadership expressed by the
journals instructions to authors. In 2013, she published her first book, an
233

234 Editing Research

edited volume entitled Supporting Research Writing: Roles and Challenges

in Multilingual Settings. That multi-authored book explored the range of
language-support services available to researchers who use English as an
additional language, from the teaching of academic writing to translation
and editing. Since the publication of Supporting Research Writing, she felt
an increasing need to raise the profile of authors editors, by documenting their work and their contributions to research communication. That
strong personal interest motivated her to set aside time from editing to
do the qualitative and bibliographic research that underlies the present
volume, Editing Research.

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