Ready to Revise, but Writing to the Journal Editor?
A few days ago you received a message from the editor of that journal you were hoping might publish your paper, but the message did not contain the positive news you expected. Instead, you were informed that your manuscript could not be accepted for publication. Fortunately, the editor was interested enough in your work to explain the problems, and you have given his or her feedback serious consideration in the days that followed. You probably had a good conversation with at least one colleague as well, or maybe you sought advice from your favourite mentor. Either way, you have decided exactly how you will approach the revisions that will, you believe, address the editor’s concerns and render the paper publishable.
The next step is to communicate your plans for the paper to the editor and ensure that he or she will in fact reconsider your work if you revise it as you intend. This will not be a particularly easy letter to write, but these tips may make the task a little less onerous.
• Approach the letter with enthusiasm, an open mind and a positive attitude. These will shine through your writing and help in every way.
• Be courteous and respectful. Beginning your letter with an acknowledgement of gratitude for the helpful feedback is an excellent idea.
• Write well. Make sure your prose is clear and precise and that all errors have been eliminated. If language is a problem in your manuscript, the best way to prove your ability to resolve the problem is to write an accomplished letter.
• Be specific and informative about what you plan to change and how you plan to change it, but do not inundate a busy editor with unnecessary information. Remember that a good example can represent many instances of the same or a similar pattern.
• Be specific and informative about what you cannot or are unwilling to change as well. This is far more difficult, but you may need to defend something as fundamental as your research methodology if it is innovative or a detail as small as punctuation patterns in order to represent, say, an early printed book with precision. The point is to find a balance between maintaining the integrity of your research and meeting the needs of the publisher.
• Remember that quickly agreeing to any changes requested by the editor that may be time-consuming but do not compromise your research will render changes you refuse to make exceptional. If you also explain very carefully why those aspects of your work should not be altered, you stand a good chance of convincing the editor that your view is a valid one.
• If you plan to recruit the services of a professional proofreader or editor to help you improve your prose or ensure your conformity with guidelines, it can be useful to mention this. Seeking such help and letting the editor know that you are doing so will be especially productive if there were serious problems with your written English or you find it difficult to understand exactly what the publisher guidelines mean.
Why Our Editing and Proofreading Services?
At Proof-Reading-Service.com we offer the highest quality journal article editing, dissertation proofreading and online proofreading services via our large and extremely dedicated team of academic and scientific professionals. All of our proofreaders are native speakers of English who have earned their own postgraduate degrees, and their areas of specialisation cover such a wide range of disciplines that we are able to help our international clientele with research editing to improve and perfect all kinds of academic manuscripts for successful publication. Many of the carefully trained members of our manuscript editing and proofreading team work predominantly on articles intended for publication in scholarly journals, applying painstaking journal editing standards to ensure that the references and formatting used in each paper are in conformity with the journal’s instructions for authors and to correct any grammar, spelling, punctuation or simple typing errors. In this way, we enable our clients to report their research in the clear and accurate ways required to impress acquisitions proofreaders and achieve publication.
Our scientific proofreading services for the authors of a wide variety of scientific journal papers are especially popular, but we also offer manuscript proofreading services and have the experience and expertise to proofread and edit manuscripts in all scholarly disciplines, as well as beyond them. We have team members who specialise in medical proofreading services, and some of our experts dedicate their time exclusively to dissertation proofreading and manuscript proofreading, offering academics the opportunity to improve their use of formatting and language through the most exacting PhD thesis editing and journal article proofreading practices. Whether you are preparing a conference paper for presentation, polishing a progress report to share with colleagues, or facing the daunting task of editing and perfecting any kind of scholarly document for publication, a qualified member of our professional team can provide invaluable assistance and give you greater confidence in your written work.
If you are in the process of preparing an article for an academic or scientific journal, or planning one for the near future, you may well be interested in a new book, Guide to Journal Publication, which is available on our Tips and Advice on Publishing Research in Journals website.
