Dear colleagues,
I am looking for a native English researcher working in the field of philosophy of science/philosophy of mathematics/mathematics to proofread and polish my manuscripts prepared for submission and also (if wanted) other texts within future projects of the small press company that I manage.
I always had difficulties with the journal editors when coming to the issues of language. Manuscripts with positive reviews and close to publication have been pending for many months due to language and I have struggled polishing and re-polishing them with the help of several people. Some of these manuscripts never met the editor’s expectation, although they acknowledged their substance, which is the case of the current job (I have a manuscript that was proofread by a native linguist, reread by a native mathematician, passed both journal’s reviews with respect to content, but the editor still reject the language as “non idiomatic”, “difficult to read”, with “senseless sentences”, etc.).
Thus far I have worked with a native linguist familiar with the field of philosophy and psychology. I thought philosophical texts are clear enough for a native reader to intuit what a non-native author mean in its “weird-sounding” portions, but it seems that I was wrong. Now I am sure that the expertise in the particular field of the text (philosophy of science) is necessary for the proofreader. I feel that the original style, carrying local cultural characteristics, always remain embedded in the final proofread text. I understand that these difficulties are mere the nature of language, but I still cannot accept that a text proofread third times can be rejected.
I am looking for a philosopher of science, of mathematics, or a mathematician to polish my texts in order to make them readable, eliminate the weird non-native style, intuit the logical connection between the parts of the sentence even it is not clearly visible, comply with the standard style of exposition of the literature in that particular field, and, of course, correct the obvious grammar/orthographic/spelling errors. I intentionally left this text unpolished for you to have an image of what is to be done (I only run the automatic spellchecker on it).
I welcome PhD students or early career academics to answer my call. I cannot pay much (my offer is $3 per 300-word source page or co-authorship if preferred), but I can compensate with volume and other advantages. We also have books in projects, single authored or collections of texts in the field of philosophy of science, needing native proofreading. Editor positions and also co-authorship for the proofreaders will be available once the projects started.
Most of the translations are done from Romanian.
Thank you for your time.
Dear Catalin
I find quite a few formulations in your request that could well be improved for English. Not only in style, simply the grammar! Even the heading has several flaws in it.
In my own career, I have often experienced that assistance in English lowered the quality of the text. The reason, as you also have noticed, is simply lack of expertise in the discipline.
I suggest to search for native co-workers; that has turned out best for me.
Unless one does not see the article and the exchange with the editor, it is not possible to judge the deeper reason for the delay in the publication.
Good luck,
Manfred
Dear Manfred,
Thank you for sharing your experience with proofreading. I would add that literary (non-expert) assistance lowers the quality of the text if not followed up by author's review. But even with such second review, the non-native style remains. That is perhaps because we think in our own native language and therefore the proofreader must rethink the content with his own language. Obviously, the issue is much complex than this note.
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