Most peer-reviewed academic journals have set very strict publication standards for accepting manuscripts. Most ESL (English as second language) researchers are not familiar with scientific writing styles of English journals. Moreover, they also find it difficult to comprehend the extensive formatting guidelines of most English journals. To address these issues, most author education companies now provide publication support services.
Publication support services include manuscript formatting, figure formatting, plagiarism check, and journal recommendation. Each journal has its distinct formatting guidelines for manuscript development. A professional academic editor is also an expert in formatting your manuscript according to the guidelines of the target journal. These editors would rectify the following parameters of the manuscript: page layout, font size, headings, line spacing, title of the article, and reference citations.
A scientific illustrator renders figure formatting services to ensure that all the figures of the manuscript are publication-ready and in compliance with the strict formatting guidelines of the target journal. The scientific illustrator will not only change the dimensions of the figures but will also construct graphs, annotations, and composite figures. They will change the color, resolution, and scale of the figures to enhance their overall appearance. Most ESL authors avail of this publication support service before submitting their paper to the target journal.
Plagiarism check is the most popular publication support service. In an academic manuscript, authors have to include findings of related studies. But they need to express these findings in their own words, thereby avoiding plagiarism issues. However, most ESL authors are caught in plagiarism issues as they have limited fluency in English. Plagiarism check software, such as iThenticate.com is used to check the content of the manuscript. The sentences that show plagiarism are rephrased by academic editors.
Journal recommendation service has also been availed by most ESL researchers because they find it difficult to select an academic journal that is most suitable for publishing their manuscript. An author can receive research grants only after having a successful track record of publications in international journals. In some fields of study, there are thousands of journals publishing academic articles and it is confusing to select the most suitable journal for publication. Therefore, journal recommendation is an important publication support service.
A novice author may submit an article to a journal that is not related to the research study. This would lead to rejection of the article by the journal editor and negative reviews from the peer review committee. All these factors lengthen the time spent in publication process. Most academic editors have a successful track record of publication in international journals. They have often worked as peer reviewers for reputed journals. They can recommend the correct journals to novice authors and improve their chances of publication. Most ESL authors avail a complete package of publication support services from author education companies.