Pre-submission advice:  checklist

Prior to submitting any manuscript to us, authors should go through the following checklist.  

Pre-submission checklist

• An appropriate "Style" has been formally defined for each element of the document —  including each level of heading ("Heading 1", etc.), figure/table captions, and ordinary running text — and has been applied to yield a consistent format throughout.  
• Vocabulary has been checked to avoid commonly confused terms.  
• Terminology has been checked against authoritative current resources to ensure that it is fully up-to-date.   
  • Example:  "Bacillota"  is currently accepted, not "Firmacutes", nor "Firmicutes".  (One of forty-two phyla named or renamed in 2021.)
  • Example:  "Nihonium" is the standard name, with symbol "Nh";  it supersedes the systematic name "Ununtrium", with symbol "Uut" or "113".  (One of four chemical elements assigned permanent names and symbols in 2016.)
• Grammar has been checked to form appropriate plurals of compound nouns.  
• Mathematical equations have been correctly typeset;  in particular, all variables are correctly formatted.  
• Punctuation has been checked, including
  • appropriate spacing,
  • a proper minus sign (−) is used for negation, subtraction, and to indicate a negative, and
  • a distinction is made between a hyphen (-) and an en-dash (–).  
• Figures are of high quality without bloat:  figures are clearly readable without magnification, images have been saved and/or embedded in an appropriate format, and the file sizes are not excessive.  
• Citations are presented appropriately, and the reference list is consistently and appropriately formatted.  

From experience with many, many manuscripts, the above are among the most commonly overlooked issues. 

Of course the above list is not exhaustive, and various other issues will naturally deserve the authors' attention too.  

Motivation

There are three good reasons for authors to address (at least) the above points prior to seeking assistance from a language service.  

• Ignoring the above points means that fixing the manuscript will take more effort:  that may cost you more money, and/or result in a longer turnaround time.  
• Ignoring the above points might make your intended meaning in the original manuscript unclear:  that may result in uncertainty when trying to correct the document — an obstacle to getting the best outcome.  
• Getting into a good practice of familiarising yourself with the above points, and addressing those issues yourself, could ultimately help you to reach a level of English sufficient to submit directly to a publisher.