Copy-editing of research papers: who and why and why not

Abstract

Poorly written research papers are a perennial problem, often written upon in these columns. Pandit found that ‘many of us are unable to feature in top-tier journals not because of our inability to pursue good science, but because of the failure to write in a coherent and lucid manner’. In exhorting editors ‘to accept such [poorly written in terms of language] papers and suitably edit them, instead of outright rejection’ Marcin Kozak sidesteps a crucial issue: Who should do the job of ‘suitably editing’ such papers? Kozak’s colleague took the view that ‘it is not the editors’ job to take care of language of the papers published in their journals’. Who, then? In the publishing world, this is – or used to be – the job of the copy-editor (also known as the subeditor), either in the publisher’s employ or working as a freelancer but paid by the publisher. Increasingly, however, publishers expect authors to pay for copy-editing or simply dispense with copy-editing altogether. Some journal publishers, including Springer, Elsevier, and Wiley-Blackwell, even list on their web pages for authors the names of a few agencies that undertake copy-editing of research papers for a fee. Does copy-editing matter? As an interested party, I will not attempt to answer the question, but direct readers to a web page titled ‘Adding value through subediting’ from the website of Nature. The web page offers ten reasons why ‘Nature and the Nature research journals copyedit (subedit) scientific research papers’. The following are the first four reasons in the list.