Understanding what’s involved before you start will help sustain you throughout this long and tiring process. This is particularly hard when you’re starting out in your career. Here, we’re focusing on pre-submission and submission, starting with choosing which journal is a good fit for your research, through to preparing and submitting your manuscript. Most journals have advice for prospective authors on their websites.

Journal editors require writing that communicates your findings clearly. This is understandable – both you and the editor will want readers to understand your work and cite it. Even if your scientific content is good, there’s a chance it will rejected if the science cannot be easily understood because your paper contains too many grammatical or linguistic errors. High-quality writing increases your chances of acceptance for publication and increases the impact of your work in the research community.

English is a notoriously tricky language to master and conveying your ideas in English can be a real challenge. The most subtle changes in word order can drastically change the emphasis and meaning of a sentence in English. Proofreading and English editing services will ensure that the meaning of your research is fully understood.

Writing your paper in your own language and getting an automatic translation is not an option– you’ll need more help to retain the true meaning of your ideas. This is where the services of a professional translator can make the difference between your paper being accepted or rejected.

Working in a foreign language is a lot more demanding than writing in your own language. It’s harder work, and, as an already busy researcher, you’ll need to set aside a lot more of your precious time to accomplish this. And, what you really want to be doing is moving on to your next great idea.

Writing, in any language, is both a talent and a skill. Even native English speakers will say it’s a challenge. There’s a lot of writing advice available, whether in books, articles or online courses, which help you address and improve your general writing skills.

For a scientific paper, it’s not enough just for the English to be good. Are you using the right technical vocabulary? Is the style right for the journal and the research community as a whole? Your paper needs to be written in the language your editors, reviewers, and readers are used to, when they read published research and participate in research-related discussion. Your reputation is at stake if you don’t get this right – you can invest in a course  which will give you a head start.