How exactly do I edit scientific writing?

Beyond the scientific value of your work, there are many written elements, big and small, that collectively make an excellent piece of writing, as opposed to an average one.

Here is a break-down of the various types of edits that I suggest, with an example of my feedbackfor each.

Narrative

Any piece of science writing has a message that should be clearly articulated. Ensuring that the narrative is consistent and easy to understand, from the beginning right until the end, is important to convey this message strongly.

Example of my input: I can see how these two ideas are connected in your mind, but part of this story is currently missing, and I believe that the narrative won’t be obvious to your readers. I suggest adding this sentence (“Sentence”) to build a link between these two concepts, and better guide the reader through your thought process.

Structure

A document that is easy to read, with seamlessly flowing ideas, will be more impactful. Once you have all the pieces of the story (i.e. a complete narrative), you need to ensure that they are arranged in the correct order (i.e. a coherent structure).

Example of my input: I suggest inverting these two sentences. Doing so would allow you to go from “The enzyme is inhibited” to “The downstream pathway is disrupted”, which flows better with the rest of the paragraph.

Strengthening arguments

Knowing when to tone down a statement and when to put more emphasis on another can change the impact of your writing.

Example of my input: I think "puzzling" is a bit light here. I suggest being more assertive to really emphasize the fact that, while this has been going on for millions of years, we still don't know how it works. It’s an important aspect of your rationale and I suggest rephrasing this sentence as such for greater impact: “Sentence”.

Grammar (and consequently clarity)

Often, researchers are so familiar with their work that they don’t realise how confusing a sentence can be, simply because of inaccurate grammar.

Example of my input: This sentence is very long (5 lines) and it is impossible to know whether “which” refers to “the diversity”, or “the impact”. I suggest using two sentences as such: “Sentence 1. Sentence 2”. This would clarify your argument without jeopardizing the flow within your abstract.

Proper referencing

Scientific accuracy relies on impeccable referencing, and as a scientific editor, my role is also to ensure that the text and references are coherent. This is not only important to avoid mis-referencing down the track, but also to keep your message crystal-clear.

Example of my input: I suggest removing the mention of viruses in the very first sentence of the introduction, because the literature that you use in this entire first paragraph applies to bacteria only. Your first sentence would become “Sentence”. There is a similar issue in the discussion, line 502, where you use references on eukaryotic viruses, in a paragraph exclusively focused on bacteriophages.

Conciseness

Younger writers often use wordy or convoluted sentences, with clunky words, expressions or repetitions. Razor-sharp writing conveys precision, and this is what you want to achieve.

Example of my input: Replace “These are known to be important factors” with “These are important factors”, and replace “Looking at the specifics” with “Specifically”.

Spelling, punctuation and vocabulary

Impeccable spelling and punctuation, as well as a rich vocabulary, are an excellent way of making a stellar impression on the readers.

Example of my input: The journal is asking for American spelling, so you should use “acclimatize”, not “acclimatise”. Also, I suggest using “greater” rather than “larger” on line 435 to avoid repetition with line 433.

Figures and tables

The devil does hide in the details! Figures, tables and their associated legends, captions and descriptions are sometimes overlooked at the end of writing, especially for long documents, but these need to be clear and consistent throughout.

Examples of my input:

Fig 1 only has 3 panels (Fig 1a-c) so Fig 1d does not exist. I believe this statement refers to Supplementary Fig. 1.

In Fig 2, the legends states that outliers from the North-facing cliff are in orange, but the only colours on the figure are purple and green; this needs to be changed for consistency between the text and the figure.