Formal Scholarly English and Journal Guidelines
All scholarly journals publishing articles in the English language will want (and the guidelines provided by many of them will specify the need for) papers written in formal English that is both clear and correct. It is very rare, however, for such guidelines to provide much detail about exactly what is expected in terms of language and writing style, so we thought it might be helpful to explore briefly some aspects of writing professional English prose that prove problematic in many of the academic and scientific articles that we proofread here at PRS.
British versus American English
Often the requirement to use either British or American English is the only advice about language to be found in the guidelines of academic and scientific journals. Some journals will prefer one type to the other, and even those journals willing to accept papers in both will not want a mixture of British and American spellings in a single article. There are many differences between British and American English, some of which are inconsistent and tricky (‘metre’ in British English, for instance, whereas American English uses ‘meter’, but ‘parameter’ in both British and American; ‘programme’ in British and ‘program’ in American, but ‘program’ for a computer program in both), so a good dictionary will need to be consulted to determine the correct spelling for all the words in an article. Some of the most common differences include ‘ou’ in British (colour, behaviour) whereas American uses only an ‘o’ (color, behavior), ‘re’ in British (theatre, centre) whereas American uses ‘er’ (theater, center), doubling of consonants in British (modelling, labelled) whereas American uses a single consonant (modeling, labeled) and ‘ae’ and ‘oe’ in British (aesthetic, manoeuvre) whereas American uses an ‘e’ alone (esthetic, maneuver).
The Use of ‘-ize’ versus ‘-ise’ Endings
Although ‘-ise’ endings are often used in British English (as they are in this newsletter), they are neither required nor a true distinguishing feature because the ‘-ize’ endings used in American English are also used in British English. Some journal guidelines even prefer the use of ‘-ize’ endings while also requesting British English. This requirement refers to words such as ‘generalize’, ‘systemizing’, ‘spiritualized’ and ‘organization’, which in British English can also be spelled ‘generalise’, ‘systemising’, ‘spiritualised’ and ‘organisation’. Because both forms are acceptable, the important point is to maintain consistency by using either ‘-ize’ or ‘-ise’ endings for such words throughout an article. Some similar words do not have variant spellings, however: ‘promise’, ‘advise’, ‘comprise’, ‘chastise’ and others must be spelled ‘-ise’ in both British and American English. Others must always be spelled differently in the two versions of the language: ‘analyse’, ‘paralyse’ and ‘catalyse’ in British English, for instance, are spelled ‘analyze’, ‘paralyze’ and ‘catalyze’ in American English, regardless of whether ‘-ize’ or ‘-ise’ endings are used.
Why Our Editing and Proofreading Services?
At proofreading services we pride ourselves on the exceptionally dedicated team of academic and scientific professionals who provide our English editing and proofreading services. Our editors and proofreaders are highly educated native speakers of English who have undergone rigorous training in expert editing practices, and their fields of study and specialisation range so widely that we are able to help our clients improve and polish research manuscripts of all kinds for successful publication. Many members of our research paper editing and proofreading team focus on journal editing, manuscript editing, scientific manuscript editing, academic proofreading, academic editing, dissertation proofreading services, professional proofreading, thesis editing services and scientific proofreading, assisting authors with articles that will be submitted to scientific and academic journals by ensuring that the formatting and references in their manuscripts conform to the relevant guidelines with precision and by correcting grammar, punctuation, spelling and typing errors to enable the clear and accurate communication of original research that acquisitions editors expect in publishable papers.
Our scientific editing, medical editing, bioscience editing, life science editing, environmental science editing, pharmaceutical science editing, physical science editing, agricultural science editing, LaTeX paper editing, social science editing, political science editing, engineering paper editing, psychology editing, research paper editing, manuscript editing, humanities editing, journal article editing, biomedical science editing, planetary science editing, plant science editing, material science editing, veterinary science editing, behavioural science editing and neurosurgery editing services for authors of scientific papers and reports are especially popular, but we also excel at book editing and have the experience and expertise to proofread and edit books and papers of all kinds across every scholarly discipline. Some of our carefully trained editors and proofreaders work exclusively on PhD thesis editing, master’s dissertation proofreading, bachelor’s dissertation proofreading, thesis editing, dissertation editing, thesis proofreading and dissertation proofreading, applying their education and instructional skills in providing thesis editing and dissertation proofreading services that help advanced students to improve the formatting and language of their theses and dissertations and thereby increase their chances of degree success. Whether you are preparing a conference or class presentation, putting the final touches to a professional report for colleagues or tackling the challenging task of editing any kind of academic or scientific document for publication, a qualified member of our outstanding proofreading and editing team will be delighted to provide proofreading and editing services and boost your confidence in your written work.
If you are in the process of preparing an article for an academic or scientific journal, or planning one for the near future, you may well be interested in a new book, Guide to Journal Publication, which is available on our Tips and Advice on Publishing Research in Journals website.
We also offer the following services:
Pharmaceutical Science Editing
Social Sciences Editing Services
Bachelor’s Dissertation Editing
Research Paper Writing Blog 