Editing a manuscript before submission
Editing a manuscript before it goes to a journal brings the text into the target journal's style and to the standard the journal's instructions set, and it may shorten the time to acceptance and lower the chance of rejection at triage, though it guarantees neither acceptance nor review.
Journal style and the author instructions
A manuscript should be prepared to the journal's author instructions, which can cover everything from the article categories the journal accepts and its word limits to the formatting of references and figures. The author instructions are on the journal's home page, where they may be in a tab near the top or a link along the side or near the bottom, and they usually differ from the submission instructions, which cover the platform for uploading the manuscript files, any publication fees and other relevant information. Their address belongs in the manuscript checklist or in the bookmarks kept for that client, and they should be read thoroughly; if another person is formatting the manuscript, pasting the pertinent instructions into an email saves them sifting through the information.
In one science editor's experience, most manuscripts need at least one change to bring the style into line with the target journal: some authors disregard the author instructions completely, some try to follow them and miss pieces, and some are new enough to manuscript writing not to know the instructions exist. Some Elsevier journals put every submission through an electronic technical check and instruct editorial staff to send back anything that does not conform to the journal's style; the American Journal of Veterinary Research suspended processing of one manuscript and asked the author to correct the style issues and resubmit; and Ecosphere's author instructions warn that failure to follow journal style on the final accepted manuscript will delay online publication. Disregarding the author instructions therefore sometimes leads to initial triage rejection, and formatting a manuscript to the journal's style likely shortens the time from submission to acceptance and perhaps also the time from acceptance to publication.
To keep editing consistent across manuscripts, one science editor applies journal style from the author instructions first, then compares the manuscript with at least one published article from the same journal to settle the style details the instructions do not list, and only then edits the text for clarity and consistency. The general guidelines of the American Medical Association Manual of Style give the editing process three parts:
- Clarity: grammar, punctuation, spelling, conciseness of text, tables, figures and legends, confusing passages, and placement of ideas.
- Consistency: discrepancies in results, matching of figure references to figures, and differences in usage.
- Style: order and titles of sections, length of title, abbreviations, numerals, font, spacing, page and line numbering, in-text reference citations, and the reference list.
What an editor checks
The overarching goal of editing a manuscript, as two experienced manuscript editors see it, is to "shine the best light" on the research and the authors. Twelve editors surveyed on what they look for when editing a manuscript looked in each section for editing standards met, from grammar and punctuation to syntax, readability and spelling, for content serving the section's intended purpose, and for the components the journal's guidelines specify. Across the manuscript as a whole, they looked for consistent terms and definitions, coherent and logical flow, research methodology that demonstrates good science, and the journal's requirements met, from word limit to reference format and title page components.
A good checklist can help editors plan, stay organised and work more efficiently when editing manuscripts and submitting them to journals. A single checklist can serve one manuscript or work as a dashboard for managing several at once. One manuscript-editing checklist has sections for tracking and metrics, the manuscript's common features, the abbreviations used, the journal's author instructions, notes, and final checks of the edited paper. The advantages of editing to a checklist are:
- Consistency of acronyms, abbreviations, phrases or terms, nomenclature for key concepts, and other information.
- Structure: it ensures the journal's requirements are met, the sections are in the correct order, and the right data and information sit in the correct section.
- Productivity: it keeps the editor on task, avoids time wasted scrolling to check consistency, and marks where work stopped.
- Tracking of deadlines, of authors' return of requested information, and of metrics for estimating the time future editing projects will take.
For the final scan of the paper, viewing the file with "No Markup" in track changes makes issues such as extra spaces and typos visible.
The evidence on editing before submission
Authors' editors, who help authors get their work published, can help reduce waste of peer reviewers' time and unwarranted publication costs. Poorly written papers are time-consuming to review and, depending on the journal, may account for a small percentage of the primary reasons for rejection, and several studies confirm that the quality of writing improves after review by a technical or science editor, a peer reviewer or a copyeditor.
As of 2011, virtually no quantitative data suggested that editing improves a manuscript's chances of being published, and the quality of the science is likely the most important, yet unquantifiable, variable that determines acceptance. The writing-quality studies that showed improvement after editing were all conducted on already-accepted, and in most cases published, articles. In one, 100 readers of the Dutch Journal of Medicine, unaware of which version they were reading, judged that editing alone greatly improved tables and figures where peer review alone brought no significant improvement, and that editing improved the methods section significantly more than peer review did. In another, 44 field experts using a 34-item assessment tool found that peer review generally improved poorly written manuscripts more than fairly well-written ones.
A 2011 study compared time from submission to acceptance for 47 published articles reporting bench-level laboratory research by academic authors at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine, from 37 journals and 19 primary authors, with 68% of the articles written by authors whose first language is not English. The articles were divided into those a science editor had edited before submission and those the author had not submitted for editing. Each journal's mean time from submission to first decision was used as a covariate, and it was obtained for 30 of the 47 articles.
With the journal's mean as a covariate, edited manuscripts were accepted an average of 27.3 days earlier than non-edited ones; without it, across all 47, the difference was 31 days, and neither difference was significant. The standard deviations were large, with coefficients of variation of 58.83% for edited and 46.22% for non-edited manuscripts, and this probably accounts for the failure to find a significant difference. A post-hoc calculation put the sample needed at 95 per group for 80% power to detect a difference between means of 121 and 152 days to acceptance, or 126 per group for 90% power. The journal's own mean was the only variable examined with a significant linear relationship to days to acceptance, and manuscript length showed no significant correlation with it. One possible reason for the difference is that improved clarity makes for faster reading by peer reviewers and fewer corrections from the authors, though other variables, such as differences in individual reviewer and journal practices, may also affect acceptance time.
Every article in that sample was eventually published, so the manuscripts were already of high quality, and the room for improvement may have been small compared with rejected manuscripts. The study did not address acceptance rates, did not assess editors with different levels of experience, and could not control the manuscript's scientific content. Studies comparing how often edited and non-edited manuscripts are rejected might give more accurate data on the usefulness of science editing. An unintended consequence of editing to improve language clarity may be that the flaws of an imperfect study are recognised more easily.
The 2011 study's findings suggest an approximate one-month decrease in acceptance time for edited manuscripts, and other studies indicate that quality improves in edited or reviewed papers. Beyond that, a paper edited before submission appears to have a lower chance of triage rejection, which delays acceptance and publication, and in some instances its copyediting may be expedited for faster online or print publication. For most authors a month might make no substantial difference, but for authors under tenure or promotion review, or seeking a diplomate status that requires them to publish, a few days could affect their careers.
What editing cannot guarantee
Using a science editor before submission does not guarantee that a manuscript will be accepted or even forwarded for peer review. The author's reputation may account for acceptance in some instances, and manuscripts may be rejected for flaws in the design and methods of the research, redundant knowledge, or content inappropriate for the journal. For these reasons authors' editors, especially freelance editors, should tell the author or client that their input does not guarantee acceptance, and many freelance editors and editing companies include such a disclaimer on their quotes.