How to Get the Most from Your AJE Edit

At AJE, we value the opportunity to support researchers by providing language editing for their manuscripts, and we want all of our customers to have a great experience. Here are a few tips that might be helpful when submitting a manuscript for language editing.

Updated on January 22, 2020

A researcher typing a manuscript on a computer

Whether this is your first submission to AJE or you have been a valued customer for many years, we want your experience with us to exceed your expectations. Did you know that there are steps you can take to help our editors when they work on your paper? Below, some of AJE's most experienced editors share what they would like you to know about the editor's perspective.

Submit as final a draft as possible.

The more complete the manuscript, the better we can understand your research and argument, which enables us to provide a more detailed, consistent edit. We know that the draft you most likely submit to us isn't truly “final”, as our job is to help you get to that stage, but we can't be as helpful with a very rough draft as we can be with a more polished one because we may have questions about missing or unclear text.

Use quotations carefully.

Follow the citation conventions in your field, and be sure to cite any information that you have obtained from other scholars, whether you are paraphrasing or quoting directly. Authors in the humanities should pay special attention to the correct placement of quotation marks around any text that is cited from another source. Otherwise, it can be difficult for our editors to know which text they should edit and which they should leave alone. We will always bring it to your attention when we are uncertain about a quotation, but the clearer you can be, the better.

Understand the scope of our services.

At AJE, we take the ethics of research, writing, and publication very seriously. This means that we cannot correct your content, add content, or resolve problems with plagiarism (see point on quotations above). Our focus is on improving the clarity and readability of what you have written by focusing on grammar, phrasing, punctuation, and terms specific to your field of study, but we cannot rearrange the paragraphs or change the fundamental structure of your paper.

So, before submitting to us, consider having a colleague or advisor review your paper to assess its overall flow and argument, especially if different sections of the manuscript are written by different authors. With these fundamentals in place, we will be able to provide a more effective and precise edit.

Familiarize yourself with our different options.

Is Standard or Premium editing right for you? Many of our customers choose Premium because this service includes unlimited, free re-edits for the same paper, and in many cases, this is more economical than purchasing a series of standard edits for the same paper. Our customer service team would be very happy to discuss your individual situation and advise you on the best selection.

Did you know that we do more than editing? As scientific and research communication become more diverse, visual, and multimodal, AJE has developed services to help researchers communicate their work in a variety of ways. We offer figure services, such as figure formatting, table formatting, and custom illustration.

If you would like help with the submission process, we offer a journal recommendation service, as well as have a free cover letter template. Finally, if you typically work in LaTex, we can edit your paper in that format to avoid the extra steps of converting back and forth with Microsoft Word.

Do you need a word count reduction?

If your target journal has a word count limit for the abstract, please let us know so that we can help make your abstract more concise (or avoid making it longer). You will find a question about abstract word limits on the submission page, so be sure to answer it. If you need to reduce the word count of your entire manuscript, you are welcome to let us know. We will not delete large sections of text or risk changing your meaning, but we can definitely try to be concise in our editing.

Important terms? Let us know.

When you submit your manuscript, you will be asked to list any preferred terms that should not be modified during editing. Please take a few moments to think about this question, and feel free to list any special terms. With the highly specialized nature of today's academic research, we understand you may be introducing a new term or concept, and it helps us to know that when editing your paper.

Keep the formatting clean.

We understand that your paper is still at the draft stage when you submit it to us, and for that reason, you might still be working out the different sections, headings, sub-headings, and formatting (use of bold or italic fonts, etc.). However, too many different fonts or inconsistent use of headings can make the paper less clear to our editors overall.

Finally, remember that we are here to help! If you have any questions about your situation or about our services, please reach out to our support team!

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