English Editing Service
Our editing process is as follows:
Your paper goes through a two-step editing process that clarifies your ideas and removes Chinese English without changing your meaning. Our goal is to make your paper publishable.
Editor selection
Our editors are selected primarily according to their knowledge of a specific domain. We prefer that our editors have a graduate degree and research writing experience in the fields of the papers they edit. Although this is not always possible for smaller subfields, we endeavor to find an editor who knows the writing style of an author's specific domain. Technical editing skills are rare and difficult to obtain, and most who apply to edit at Wallace are not accepted. Those who are accepted are trained in rewriting and editing Chinese English sentences. Editors complete a rigorous 3-month training program in which their exercises and samples are evaluated by proofreaders and other editors to ensure they are qualified before they are given live customer papers.
- What we do during editing: A native English speaking editor revises your paper, paying special attention to sentences that read like nonnative English. Editors are especially vigilant for overuse of the passive voice, word choice that more accurately reflects your intended meaning, redundancies, pronouns, improper tense use, subject–verb agreement, and other writing errors common among native Chinese speakers.
- Challenges in editing: When editors rewrite sentences, it is possible that they may change the meaning.
- Solutions we implement: Editors carefully avoid changing meaning by adding comments in the margins of the document. These notes are then checked by the English proofreader and the author.
Step 1: Academic paper editing by native English speakers
After receiving your paper, we assign it to an editor for the first round of editing. Our editors specialize in a various fields, and many of them have pursued at least a master's degree and have experience writing theses or dissertations. Upon joining our team, every editor is required to complete an intensive 3-week training program that focuses on familiarizing them with the style guides of various academic disciplines and enhancing their skills in academic writing, textual interpretation, and leaving comments for authors. During training, senior editors and proofreaders mentor new editors and review their work to ensure that they are fully capable of providing high-quality editing services.
In the first round of editing, editors concentrate on revising sentences that contain errors commonly seen in Chinese English writing, including abuse of the passive voice, subject–verb disagreement, and problems related to word choice, redundancy, syntax, and tense. Despite the tremendous differences between Chinese and English, we endeavor to maintain and express your original meaning as accurately and completely as possible—and, of course, in native English. When editors are uncertain about the meaning of the text, they modify the original sentence and leave a comment reminding you to ensure that the revised text reflects your intended meaning.
Types of sentence revisions conducted during editing from Chinese English to native English
At Wallace Academic Editing, we substantially rewrite sentences that are not constructed in a native style. Revisions our editors consider when transforming Chinese English sentences into native English sentences include the following:
- We like to move the subject to the beginning of sentences to emphasize your main idea.
- We like to shorten long sentences and limit your sentences to only one or two main ideas by using semicolons.
- We like to maintain a direct and concise English flow that maintains a logical approach and avoids "textbook English."
- We do not like to overuse the first person; in the methods section, we often use the passive voice to avoid having authors talk about themselves.
- We like transitional phrases that connect two sentences, two paragraphs, or two ideas.
- We do not like to overuse prepositional or adverbial phrases that indicate time at the beginning of your sentences.
- We do not like to mention a purpose, condition, location, or reason at the beginning of every sentence.
Step 2: Editing quality control
After the first round of editing, papers go into the hands of proofreaders for quality review and inspection. In this step, proofreaders scrutinize papers for redundant words and sentences, and seek any possibilities for improvement. Papers do not benefit from unnecessary sentences; our goal is to make your manuscript more concise, relevant, and convincing without its original meanings being altered. Furthermore, proofreaders review edited documents to not only improve paper quality but also evaluate editors' performance and eligibility for continuing employment. To continually provide optimal paper editing services, we make every effort to enhance our editing quality beyond journal expectations, and to keep recruiting professional editors from various disciplines.
Additional steps: Continuous improvement of editing quality
We continually update and improve our editing standards. We review domain style manuals and journal submission guidelines to ensure that our editing standards reflect those in use in academic fields. In addition, we are always searching for capable editors in specific domains and survey journal and style manual requirements to help authors get their papers published.