Editing

Comprehensive Service

At Lucida Science Communications we understand the importance of clear, lucid descriptions of your work. Lucida's editing service is much more than simple proofreading or polishing. It involves a comprehensive review and rewrite of your document by experienced science editing professionals.

There are three essential elements to first-class science editing:

Language proficiency: Not every native-English speaker can edit your document. Good writing is a skill that must be learned and developed. Lucida's editors have years of science writing experience.
Field-specific knowledge: Even the best writer will have trouble editing your document if he or she does not understand the subject. The importance of technical and scientific knowledge cannot be overestimated.
Editor/author discussion: The complex nature of scientific documents means there will inevitably be points that the editor and author need to discuss. Over 95% of the cases we handle benefit from this discussion, followed by a second edit after these points have been clarified.

We would urge you to look for all of these when choosing an editing company to handle your most important documents. Rest assured that Lucida satisfies all of these requirements.

Specialist Editors

Lucida's editors are carefully selected for their extensive experience and qualifications. The majority of our editors have Master or PhD degrees in the sciences, engineering, and technology. All have years of experience writing and editing technical documents and academic research papers. In fact, most of them have published several papers of their own. Our editors cover all major disciplines — the physical sciences, engineering, life sciences, and technology. You can see brief profiles of some of our editors here.

Quality

Your document will be subjected to a meticulous editing procedure to produce a perfect document that is ready for distribution to your audience or publication in major academic journals. The editing procedure includes three stages:

First edit: We review your document to check organization, flow of ideas, and consistency. We then carefully check and rewrite your document word-by-word to craft clear, natural-sounding sentences, as well as to correct grammar, spelling, word choice, and punctuation. We also check your figures, graphs, and tables.
Discussion: Most documents have several points that the editor and author need to discuss. This is an essential part of the editing process and allows the author to clarify any questions the editor may have to greatly improve the quality of the final document.
Second edit: Once the discussion is completed, the editor carries out a second edit to resolve any outstanding issues. This allows the editor to clearly express the most critical points of your message, and to ensure overall consistency and quality.

Competitive Rates

Our rates are among the most competitive you will find for this kind of comprehensive service. Our rates include the first edit, editor/author discussion, and the second edit described above. In addition, free of charge we will:

check your list of cited references,
check your figures^*, and
for academic papers to be published, issue a certificate stating that your document has been edited by a native-English-speaking science editor (this will be helpful in the review and publication process).

^*Applies only to research papers, reports, and other text-based documents whose figures contain a reasonable number of words. Different rates apply to slides and posters for conference presentations, or to other highly graphical material.

We edit your file directly, rather than editing hard copies by hand. You will receive a 'clean' file that's ready for use. This typically saves authors several hours of work inputting hand-written corrections. We will also send you a 'marked up' file showing all of our revisions in a different color so that you can easily see what we changed.

After you send us your document, we will send you a firm estimate of the cost. You will always know in advance the exact cost of editing your document. Click here for details of our editing rates.

Fast Turnaround

We will respond to your inquiry within 24 hours, often within a few hours, with a detailed estimate showing the cost and schedule. We aim to complete the first edit within 3-7 days for most documents, depending on length. For urgent jobs, an express service is also available. Please click here for more details of turnaround time.