English Science Editing offers a professional editing service to scientists, clinicians, and engineers who are not native English speakers. We specialize in the editing of scientific documents before they are submitted for publication in the peer-reviewed literature, ensuring that the standard of English in each document reaches the level expected of an expert native speaker. This allows editors and referees to focus on the scientific content of the document, without having their judgment distracted by confusing or inaccurate English usage.

English Science Editing ensures that nonnative English speakers are placed on an equal footing with native English speakers in the publication process. Most of our work involves scientific manuscripts that are intended for journals or books, but we also edit academic theses and textbooks, grant applications, letters of correspondence, and referee reports and rebuttals. In addition, we edit documents on topics in which the scientific content is ancillary, in fields such as politics, economics, and education.

The importance of correct English

It is well documented that the quality of English in documents submitted to scientific journals affects the likelihood that they will be accepted for publication. The graph below shows the trend for the acceptance rate of papers submitted to Cardiovascular Research versus the mean number of errors in English usage for authors from various countries [data from Coates et al. (2002) Cardiovasc Res 53:279–285]. The data suggest that there is a clear benefit in minimizing the number of errors in English usage in manuscripts submitted to scientific journals.