Language support for journal authors

Taylor & Francis and Cactus Communications, STM News informs us, have renewed their partnership providing language support to authors. (Neat that they talk about providing “tailored language support to journal authors” — think goodness they resisted the temptation to call it taylored support.) My old-fashioned reaction was — but isn’t brushing up authors’ English part of the job of a publisher? And of course it is, but there’s no law saying that this, like so much else, cannot be freelanced out. But of course my reaction is a book-based reaction. Journals receive thousands of articles, and don’t have the resources to actively edit all of them before they reject them! Many of these papers are written by non-native English speakers, some of whom need help in making their meaning, which may be very important, quite clear. As the STM News story claims “Language quality plays a critical role in the peer review process. Poorly written submissions can impact reviewers’ understanding of the…

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