Peerwith - Connecting Experts. Peerwith can connect you with international, academic experts in researcher services. Improve the quality of your academic work, speed up the publication process, and increase your chances of publishing in high-impact journals. Hire an Expert on Peerwith, request service from peer researchers.
Sign up your institution at Peerwith and help us promote Peerwith at your institution. Become an Ambassador.
In our peer-to-peer model, researchers rate the expert on a scale of 1 to max 5 stars. The averate rating measured over last three month is currently 4,91, which is just incredible. Almost 60% of the researcher-clients rate the expert after completing their request, so this is no exception. At the same time, we are asking the researchers to score the platform and user experience. The Net Promotor Score (NPS) we get from that is now 73, which is also exceptional. That means 9 out of 10 researchers recommend our platform to co-workers, which drives our organic growth.
It means most of our clients are really promotors of Peerwith and our unique peer-to-peer model. Which is great. We used to call some of them our “ambassadors”, like Bing-Hong in Taiwan, Minea in Korea, and Matěj in Czechia.
Since then we have developed further our Institutional Solution package with the Institutional signup as the key feature. Now if you combine the two: welcome Peerwith Ambassador Program.

Guest blog by BA Essam, from Egypt.
Five years ago, the main requirement of submitting a thesis proposal at my university, according to the new regulations, was publishing the proposal in a Scopus-indexed journal. At that time, I was struggling to find supervisors who can really be helpful. Complicating matters, my thesis proposal was integrating two domains: natural language processing tools (from computer science) and corpus approaches to functional translation (from Linguistics and Translation). While several candidates failed to find helpful supervisors, I managed to find a very helpful professor (from computer science) and a very unhelpful lecturer (who served as a co-supervisor). Much as I wrote several drafts of the proposal, the co-supervisor requested a re-write. Luckily as it may seem, the regulation changed its main requirement of Scopus-based publication to make it a prerequisite for defending the MA theses. Just like many of my colleagues experienced, the co-supervisor was importing her knowledge from Google and YouTube. Eventually, she did withdraw from the supervision and my thesis was co-supervised by a truly qualified lecturer. It was only then when we could move forward and could secure an acceptance from a Q1 Scopus-based journal. The earlier scenario is typically experienced in developing countries. Candidates fail to find good mentors, especially if an innovative piece of work is introduced, while requirements of defending theses remain unattainable. Peerwith heralds a new tribune and provides qualified experts who can help early career researchers get published. Although this is a paid service, one should consider it an investment. Securing jobs and fulfilling the requirements of obtaining one’s thesis should be priceless especially at an early academic stage. More important, hiring a qualified mentor has nothing to do any ethical breach. Mentors, on Peerwith, do the following:
Guiding candidates and evaluating their produce,
Evaluating the progress and sending inline feedback (via “Track changes” and “Insert comments” options),
Give tips to correct the methodological procedures if methods are not adequately answering the research questions,
Reviewing extracts submittable to a referred journal,
Recommending the most authentic and relevant references,
Suggesting the best journals which would be interesting in reviewing an extract of a thesis,
Provide comments on statistical analysis,
Commenting on the candidate’s writing style, redundancy and coherence of the reviewed thesis.
Unifying the line of thoughts if irrelevant sections are incorporated, and
Checking thesis formatting and references consistency,
However, mentors, on Peerwith, do not offer ghost-writing and do not tolerate plagiarism.
To cut the long story short, early career researchers are encouraged to navigate this academic platform to hire the most lenient, yet effective, supervisors for completing any unfinished work.

By Zachariah Peterson.
When you’ve spent most of your professional life working on scientific research, you have plenty of opportunities to review and edit papers. Over time, I began to notice some common mistakes being made by many of my ESL clients. These mistakes go beyond spelling or grammar errors, they reflect the cultural divide that exists between Western scientists and foreign authors wishing to have their work appreciated by an English-speaking audience.
Herein, I’ll point out four common mistakes I’ve seen from foreign authors. I’d like to preface this by stating that these mistakes do not detract from the validity of the findings presented by international authors. Rather, they illustrate a fundamental misconception of the expectations held by the most impactful Western journals. The goal is to help authors improve their presentation and improve the impact of their research.
Ambiguous Statements
One of the most common mistakes I see, and one of the most troubling, is the use of ambiguous or subjective language to describe experimental results. Results from an experiment are supported by data, and definite descriptions can be formulated based on the data. Ambiguous statements involve the use of language that makes false comparisons, or that completely ignore a comparison where one is required. Ambiguous statements could also be taken to have multiple meanings
How do you spot an ambiguous statement? These types of statements will create more questions than they answer. While it is difficult to form a blanket rule that can be used to identify an ambiguous statement, you should examine whether your statements are specific. You should also examine whether a reader could infer incorrect information from your statement.
As an example, consider the following statement:
The use of a decomposed organic binder can deteriorate the performance of the battery.
This statement raises the following questions:
What measurable aspect of battery performance was affected by the use of a decomposed organic binder?
How exactly did this physical quantity change? Did it increase or decrease?
Here, the terms “deteriorates” and “performance” are ambiguous; they could be taken to mean absolutely anything. For example, in the parlance of battery research, this could mean “decreases the charge capacity”, “increases the terminal resistance”, “decreases the maximum output voltage”, or any other number of statements. In particular, this statement could be taken to mean “decreases the discharge rate” or “increases the discharge rate”. Note the ambiguity in whether a physical quantity increases or decreases. This arises because some studies, particularly applied and engineering studies, are based on reaching specific design goals.
Rather than writing these types of statements, you should always aim to be as specific as possible. The use of specific language will leave no doubt in the readers mind as to how a physical quantity changed during an experiment.
Subjective Language
A subjective statement is one that largely represents an author’s opinion while masquerading as fact. These types of statements are often written in an effort to artificially enhance the potential impact of their work. These types of statements tend to make grandiose claims as to how the results from a study will be used in the future and are often based on speculation. These statements also tend to appear informal, which is another reason they should not appear in academic papers.
Here is an examples of a sentence that contains subjective statements: Our useful results will aid new developments in biosensors, molecular self-assembly, and drug delivery.
This statement makes a grandiose claim regarding the applicability of their results and the applications they are bound to produce. The word “useful” wholly represents the author’s opinion; it remains to be seen whether others will actually make use of these results. These types of statements must be substantiated by findings from others in the field. These statements can be substantiated with a thorough review of the literature.
Researchers must accept that their hard work and results might not produce the types of applications they envision. They may be relegated to the encyclopedia of human knowledge, only to be recalled later by a young researcher with dreams of changing the world. Rather than write subjective statements, you should allow your results to stand on their own and speak for themselves. Desirable, useful results will be appreciated by the research community and will be cited by others as being relevant in your field of study.
Identifying Controversy in the Literature Review
A critical part of scientific research is identifying and articulating controversial results from the literature. It is also important to identify gaps in scientific knowledge. Many authors will perform an exhaustive literature review and will present a long list of prior results. However, simply listing out the names of authors with prior results does not provide sufficient motivation for research. I’ve seen many authors simply state something along the lines of “therefore, more research is needed” without substantiating their statements with results from the literature.
This is not to say that the motivation does not exist. Instead, this is an issue with communication and articulation. To enhance communication of your work and help provide context for your results, try to address the following points:
Identify gaps and controversies in the research literature that your work can address.
You should explain how your work will address these gaps and controversies.
State a clear hypothesis for your readers.
Explain why you would expect to see certain results.
Clearly explain how your results contribute to the body of research, and substantiate this with references. Always use specific language, do not use subjective or ambiguous language.
A Summary is Not a Conclusion
From my experience, the conclusions section is possibly the most misunderstood portion of an academic paper. Many authors will simply restate their measurements in their conclusion. What is worse, many authors will copy and paste remarks from their abstract and introduction verbatim. Neither of these approaches will meet the publications standards of high-impact journals.
While it is appropriate to spend a few sentences that summarize the focus of your study, your conclusion should go beyond summarizing your results. Your goal is to describe insights gained from your study that help drive further study in your field and increase scientific knowledge. Try to answer the following questions:
What do your results say about the controversies you identified in your literature review? Briefly substantiate this using your core results.
How do these results help drive further scientific research in your field? Do not use subjective language or mention various practical applications.
Final Remarks
Perhaps the most important point to remember when writing your paper is this: an editor cannot take a poorly written paper and turn it into a high quality paper. If you send your editor a paper with ambiguous or subjective language, improper structure, and sub-standard writing, your editor will send it back to you with more comments and questions than actual revisions. Before submitting your paper for English editing, it is a good idea to request help from a colleague with strong command of the English language. They may be willing to evaluate your paper before you send it off for editing and could help determine whether you should use a translator to improve the language and structure of your paper.
If you are interested in scheduling an Author Workshop with the author of this article, you can easily contact Zachariah Peterson through Peerwith. Zachariah has a decade of experience working as a scientific researcher, editor, and reviewer, and he is currently offering Author Workshops for international authors.

Publishing in an English journal is challenging for non-native speakers. One of the top Experts on Peerwith, Jeff Pursglove, explains in this post how good research alone is no guarantee to be accepted in a highly ranked journal. Pre-submission manuscript preparation services increase the chance of manuscripts being accepted for publication in international, high-impact journals. But there is more, like publication ethics, how to work around predatory journals and the choice for Open Access (or not).
At Peerwith, we are connecting researchers with peers who are experts in researcher services. We do that through a collaborative and transparent peer-to-peer marketplace: www.peerwith.com. We also do that by Author Workshops – powered by Peerwith. An Expert active on Peerwith, will come over to your institution for a half-day workshop: “How to get published in an English scientific journal?”
An Expert with relevant experience and a publication history, will come over to your institution for an Author Workshop. The regular price for such a workshop is USD 1,000, but today we offer the chance to win a fully organised Author Workshop at your institution!
Increase your chances of winning the Author Workshop by motviating your co-workers to enter the competition as well. The more researchers from one institution, the larger the chance you will win the Workshop.
UPDATE, we have a winner: Mônica Ferreira Corrêa from Brasil and we will organize an Author Workshop for her at Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. Congratulations Mônica!

Peerwith是全球最领先的科研服务共享平台，旨在为来自全世界的科研人员提供直接、透明、专业、无缝对接的服务平台。通过Peerwith，作者根据自己需求直接选择专家进行沟通交流并达成合作意向，选择范围广、过程透明、反馈迅速、质优价低。
目前Peerwith平台上共拥有1700多名来自全世界各学科领域的专家学者，大部分来自美国和欧洲，在各自领域内拥有极为丰富的经验。Peerwith提供客观的用户评分系统，目前专家平均得分4.92 (总分5分), 拥有极高的客户满意度。 Peerwith平台上服务类型多样，主要包括论文润色、数据分析、出版咨询、基金申请等。专家数量和提供的服务类型都在不断扩展。
为什么选择 Peerwith
专家质量高：Peerwith平台完全透明，每个专家的详细简历都对用户可见并且接受用户评分。目前专家平均得分4.92，拥有极高的客户满意度。
价格低：由于Peerwith是专家和作者的点对点平台，免除中间商环节并且用户拥有自由选择的权利，因此价格非常低。
速度快：由于作者拥有更丰富的选择并可根据需求明确稿件需要返回的时间，专家响应速度通常很快。
合作机构可对科研成果进行智能化管理：Peerwith为合作机构提供专属服务入口（机构专区）以及智能管理软件Cockpit，科研管理部门可对Peerwith平台上的稿件进行实时跟踪、审批或为本校科研人员提供服务。
听听大家怎么说
“Peerwith 是一个独特的点对点科研服务平台。这种模式非常棒，因为很多年轻的科研人员在科研道路上面临巨大挑战。Peerwith 平台上的优秀专家覆盖几乎所有研究领域，以十分公允的价格为作者提供定制化的服务。Peerwith 平台非常安全，旨在通过全球范围内科研人员之间的互助，以提高科研成果的质量、共同推动科学前进的步伐。”
Dr. Miodrag Lukic, Beyond the scientific papers – what can we do to make it different?
“做科研并不容易。撰写科研论文不止是坐在电脑前敲敲文字，出版科研成果也远远不仅是通过邮件发送论文。科学研究的整个过程相当漫长、充满挑战，并时常令人沮丧……通过Peerwith，你可以直接与为你提供论文润色服务的专家进行交流，简直完美！你所需要做的只是找到适合的专家，与他们建立联系。和专家联系之前做好准备工作将有益于提高效率，我可以为你提供一些建议。”
Karyn L Stecyk, Preparing Your Manuscript for Editing
您的科研您作主，欢迎加入 Peerwith！在下方留下您的姓名和邮件地址即可领取50美元优惠券。同时也欢迎您访问我们的中文主页了解更多信息。

This article is aimed at those new to publishing their research. Its purpose is to provide an overview of what makes a good research paper. It is hoped that, by doing so, such researchers will be able to avoid pitfalls on the path to publication, to understand more clearly the generic basis of comments made by the reviewers of their papers, and to comprehend the contribution made by their research.
What determines it?
The quality of your research paper is determined by a combination of two factors: the quality of the research itself, and the quality of the way it is presented in writing. I am referring here mainly to ‘primary research’ (e.g. experiments, surveys and case studies), rather than ‘secondary research’ (e.g. literature reviews). However, primary research will always need a literature review as a preamble, in order to describe the development and context of its hypothesis.
Quality of the research
Essentially, the quality of your research is determined by three criteria:
What theory did it aim to develop or test (originality)?
How well was it was performed (rigour)?
How valuable are its outcomes (significance)?
Quality of its presentation
Most (if not all) journals provide comprehensive guidelines regarding the style, structure and format of papers to be submitted. These guidelines do differ from one journal to another, e.g.:
Some journals will reject papers that are written in the first person; others will not.
Some journals demand ‘key words’; others prohibit them.
Some journals require the use of SI units; others do not.
Just as the fundamental instruction for sitting an examination is to read the paper from start to finish before answering any of the questions, you should read (and follow!) the guidelines of your chosen journal. There really is no excuse for not doing so, and consequently having your paper rejected.
The second element of presentation is the style and clarity of the prose, together with the correctness of the spelling and grammar. Getting this right is often a challenge for authors whose first language is not English, and yet who must write their paper in that language. As a native English speaker, with just a smattering of French and Latin, I admire the proficiency and tenacity of such authors.
I suggest that spelling and grammar are quite easy to correct, because software such as MS Word provides grammar and spell checks, but that the style and clarity of the prose are more difficult. There are many excellent books that can help: I turn to ‘The Complete Plain Words’ by Sir Ernest Gowers for guidance. However, it may well be that the best option is to seek professional help, such as that offered by the expert editors of Peerwith.
How is it measured?
The quality of your research paper will be measured by its impact. This may take several years because, unlike a novel that may shoot to the top of the best sellers’ list, there are no instantaneous measures of impact (with the possible exception of an award: see below). Furthermore, some measures of impact are precise, while others are subjective, and their use has become a major topic of debate within the academic community.
Academic impact
This is the demonstrable contribution that excellent research makes in shifting understanding and advancing scientific method, theory and application across and within disciplines (ESRC). It may be estimated by both qualitative and quantitative measures.
Qualitative measures
Awards: many publishers make awards to the authors of those papers that they judge to be especially noteworthy. I was delighted to receive such an award, from Emerald in 2007, for my paper ‘Benchmarking the performance of English universities’.
Opinion of peers: e.g., for many years the quality of the research undertaken by UK academics has been judged by panels of their peers, via the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and its successor the Research Excellence Framework. I was project manager for the 2001 RAE at the University of Sheffield, and so I know first-hand that such judgements are often difficult and sometimes contentious.
Quantitative measures
The two simplest measures of impact are: the number of times a paper has been downloaded (usually displayed online by the publisher), and the number of times it has been cited by other authors (available on Google Scholar). This latter measure is also used as a basis for calculating the H-index of a research entity (such as an individual researcher), as seen on Researchgate.
Another aspect is the quality of the journal in which your paper is published. Journals are ranked according to the weighted number of citations generated by their contents so, in this context, the perceived quality of your paper may benefit from being published alongside some other papers of very high impact.
Economic and societal impact
This is the demonstrable contribution that excellent social and economic research makes to society and the economy, and its benefits to individuals, organisations and/or nations (ESRC). It may take several years to manifest itself. Its assessment often relies on case studies.
Conclusions
In order to increase the chances and speed of acceptance, authors must: a) choose a journal in in the appropriate subject area whose reputation is compatible with the quality of the research undertaken; b) format their paper according to the guidelines of that journal; and, c) ensure that their paper contains excellent grammar and accurate spelling.
By Jeff Pursglove, Peerwith.Expert

Pre-submission manuscript preparation services increase the chance of manuscripts being accepted for publication in international, high-impact journals. At Peerwith we connect researchers with peers who are experts in researcher services. We do this in a collaborative and transparent peer-to-peer marketplace: www.peerwith.com.
Meet Dr. Miodrag Lukic, PhD, an expert active on Peerwith. Miodrag has helped many researchers in scientific editing and manuscript writing support services. He quotes: “Peerwith is unique in its peer-2-peer communication, which is great since many young colleagues, unfortunately, face huge difficulties along their road toward a degree. The experts on Peerwith basically cover all academic disciplines and offer fair fees for services tailored to individual requirements. With the secure marketplace environment, the mission is to aid the advancement of science by helping researchers globally improve the quality of their academic work. “
Meet Karyn L Stecyk, a native English speaker who helped many researchers from non-native countries in (English language) editing services. She writes: “Research isn’t easy. Writing goes beyond pounding away at your keyboard, and publishing is more than just attaching your manuscript to an email and clicking send. The process isn’t fast or without stress. At times it can be downright discouraging”. She continues: “Ultimately, everyone benefits from an editor. Even someone who is trained as an editor needs a second set of eyes to review their written work”.
You can request the service from Miodrag, Karyn or any other academic expert on Peerwith – Connecting Experts. Our mission is to be the leading peer-to-peer researcher services marketplace; connecting academics and experts across the world, aiding collaboration and improving the quality of academic work.
Subscribe now to join Peerwith and receive a US$50 discount on your first service request.

As the smartest platform for expert-led researcher services, at Peerwith we foster collaboration by connecting experts to improve the quality of scientific output. Our platform connects researchers directly with peers who are experts in researcher services. We believe human interaction will always remain of superior value, but we can’t ignore the aspects of automation, especially those that are steered by the machine learning technology.
That’s why we added machine translation to our solution package some time ago. And today we are launching our peer-to-peer Post-Editing after Machine Translation services at a very competitive rate of US$0,05 per word. Now available from Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Italian, Russian or Dutch into English language.
How does it work?
Step 1: if you have an academic paper in any of the supported language, that you would like translated into English, please consider posting it on Peerwith. Once you have done that, please upload the document and Peerwith Team will pick it up.
Step 2: the document will be translated into English for free! That is right, if you use the post-editing service on Peerwith, we will do the translation for free. Yes, we will use machine translation for this, but you will be amazed by the result. There’s been a lively discussion about whether Neural Machine Translation (NMT) will eliminate the need for human translators. Many would believe the absence of translators in the near future is a sure possibility. And we have come to a point where we agree! It speaks for itself that we checked this bold statement with several Peerwith experts, and they seconded our opinion.
Step 3: now we will post a second request on your behalf in the English Language Editing category and upload the outcome of step 2 for editors to see it.
Step 4: proceed as usual. Pick the best expert for the job, connect and collaborate with the expert. These experts are your peers.

Peerwith - Connecting Experts
Peerwith is a peer-2-peer researcher services platform, connecting academics and experts across the world, aiding collaboration and improving the quality of academic work. Services on offer include; language editing, scientific editing, translation services, manuscript writing support, publication support, indexing services, thesis services, format and design, data collection, statistical support, research mentorships, funding application support, training and workshops, and much more.
We offer researchers fair fees for high-quality services which are tailored to individual requirements and carried out in a transparent business model. We make the researcher services market more collaborative and affordable and all transactions take place in a secure environment.
Peerwith can connect you with international, academic experts. Build valuable relationships with peers and improve the quality of your academic work.

Research isn’t easy. Writing goes beyond pounding away at your keyboard, and publishing is more than just attaching your manuscript to an email and clicking “send.” The process isn’t fast or without stress. At times it can be downright discouraging.
Scenario: You open your email and find a response from your target journal. Your heart skips a beat and you open the email with a trembling hand. About time they got back to you!
And then your elated heart sinks. Rejected. The journal cites language issues, perhaps among other things. How could this happen? After all the hard work you put into this? After bribing your coworkers with food and drinks to read over your paper, provide feedback, and check the English?
It’s a common occurrence, and not one to take personally. Journal reviewers have a difficult job as well: they must carefully critique the paper before them, confirm that arguments are sound, and help judge whether the paper is a good fit for a particular journal. Sometimes just one confusing turn of phrase can be enough to call for English language editing. This doesn’t mean all is lost or that it’ll be another year before you’re published. It also doesn’t mean that you’re incompetent in the English language—English is tricky even for native speakers, and writing an academic paper is lightyears away from having a conversation with a friend. Ultimately, everyone benefits from an editor. Even someone who is trained as an editor needs a second set of eyes to review their written work.
Scenario continued: You decide you have no choice but to hire an editor. You come across Peerwith, a peer-to-peer platform that makes you feel comfortable because you can work directly with the expert editing your work. They also have options to accept your country’s currency! Perfect. You shift through a handful of experts, and type out a service request. But then you pause. Is your manuscript ready for this? Are you missing a crucial step? What’s the protocol here?
Don’t fret. You aren’t expected to present a perfect document to your expert.
However, here I’m going to outline a few key things to keep in mind and address before sending your manuscript to your chosen editor. When my clients address as many of these as possible, the editing process goes much smoother: I can work more quickly, and the paper may require less follow-up edits. In the long run this can not only save my clients time and money, but also limit the headaches associated with having to revisit sections of text multiple times.
Before Hiring an Editor…
Decide whether you prefer American or British English. If your target journal does not specify, it’s your choice. Be sure to mention your preference to your editor so that they can make corrections accordingly.
Check if your target journal prefers present or past tense in any specific sections. Typically, past tense is used for describing previous studies, methods, and results, and is often used consistently throughout the paper. Conversely, present tense is mostly only used when mentioning well-known or general knowledge. If tenses are tricky for you but you know which you want to use, just provide that information to the editor.
Look for incomplete sentences. Run a search for opening phrases such as “Due to,” “Since,” “Because,” and “Although.” Then, read the sentence slow and carefully, and ensure that the logic completes. If you are setting up a cause–effect relationship, be sure that your “effect” is actually present in the sentence. Sometimes our brains jump ahead when we add descriptive text within the middle of a sentence and we forget to complete our original thought. It’s OK. It happens. Try to catch these errors beforehand so that your editor can understand what you’re trying to say and can effectively edit the text.
Confirm which acronyms you actually want to use in your manuscript. If you define an acronym be sure to use it throughout the paper (don’t revert back to spelling out the entire term). If you don’t use the acronym later on, don’t define it at all. I see this issue in almost every paper I edit, and 90% of the time I have to leave a comment requesting the author to review their acronym use (because it’s not a choice I can make for them). This is extra work for the author if they already have a couple places within the text that they need to clarify.
Review the capitalization style of your titles/headings. This applies to sections, tables, and figures (including axes labels). Check with your target journal whether they prefer sentence case or title case. If the style guide doesn’t specify, just look at one of their published papers and see what they use. Then just confirm that this capitalization style is consistent throughout the paper. This quick fix saves you from having to address this when your editor leaves a comment about it.
These are just a few quick things you can do while revising your paper according to any other reviewer comments. They all need to be addressed at some point, but getting them out of the way early will clear the road ahead for efficient language or copy editing.
Happy revisions, happy editing, and happy publishing,
Karyn L. Stecyk
http://peerwith.expert/karynlstecyk

By Adam Bodley
A common piece of advice given to researchers who are new to academic writing is to leave the abstract until last. There are good reasons for this advice – it is better to leave the writing of the abstract until the end, so that you have a clear overview of your whole paper from the introduction, materials and methods, through to the results and the discussion.
However, as an academic editor, something I have noticed many times during the course of editing manuscripts is that the abstract is often one of the less well-written sections. On some occasions the abstract does not flow smoothly and seems disjointed; it seems to have been made up of copied-and-pasted sections from the main body of the text. At other times, it appears as though the abstract may have been written almost as an afterthought.
Now, I completely understand, and have sympathy with why an abstract may turn out this way. After someone has spent a long time – months, maybe even longer – working on an article, by the time they have finished writing their conclusion they are probably glad to see the back of the manuscript! The abstract then becomes a necessary but tiresome task; a section of the paper to be quickly cobbled together, possibly in the ways I have outlined above.
There is, however, a major flaw in this approach to writing an abstract. It is vitally important to get the abstract right, because an abstract is often found online as a standalone text, separate from the main body of an academic paper. Therefore, an abstract should be a complete and coherent document in its own right. The abstract is often the only part of an article many potential readers will see, after searching online in their particular field or area of research. Ideally, your abstract will arouse your audience’s interest and curiosity such that they seek out and read your full article.
To ensure that your abstract is as widely read as possible, you should also consider search engine optimization (SEO). This means making sure that you choose your keywords carefully, and ensure that some of your keywords appear in your title and are scattered throughout your abstract. This will help when colleagues or potential collaborators in your field are searching for relevant papers, making it easier for online search engines to locate your article and return it as part of their search.
Individual journals often have their own strict requirements when it comes to abstracts. The word count is usually strictly limited – commonly between 150 and 250 words. Some journals required a structured abstract, divided up under subheadings, almost like a miniature version of your full manuscript. Other journals are less strict about having a formally structured abstract. All abstracts should, however, have the following four components:
Background or context – where and how does your article fit into the current picture of your particular field of research?
Methodology – this is where you should include important methodological features. For example, what was the experimental approach adopted – was it a lab experiment, a field study, or a modelling exercise? What was the sample size? Which statistical analyses were applied?
Results – this is arguably the most important section of the abstract, since it will inform potential readers of the key novel findings that your paper is presenting.
Conclusion – this is where you can explain briefly the relevance of your findings and how they fit in with the general context to your field, which you identified at the start of your abstract.
There are some elements which should not be included in an abstract. For example, the abstract should not, in general, contain any references. Also, any abbreviations should be written out in full the first time if they are used – ideally they should be kept to a minimum.
As a science editor, and a Peerwith expert, the majority of the editing work I do is for scientists who have English as an additional language – that is, they are not native English speakers. My role is to carefully read through a manuscript checking for and correcting any errors in spelling, grammar, and logical flow. In addition, I often make suggestions with regard to how a section or a paragraph could be restructured to improve the flow of the argument being made.
I usually start by reading through the abstract, without editing it, to get an overview of the complete paper. I do not usually make any more edits to the abstract at this stage. Next, I will edit the main body of the manuscript, from start to finish, using the track changes feature in Microsoft Word. Once I have done this, only then do I go back to the abstract and make editing suggestions as to how it could be improved. Sometimes this may involve a slight re-editing, or it could involve suggestions on how to make more major changes, to bring it in line with the criteria I have outlined above. The important point to note is that the abstract is the last section to be fully edited, as it is the last section to be written, but that it is given an equal level of importance to that of the rest of the article.
If you have a manuscript that you would like me to edit, or advice on how to improve your abstract, please feel free to contact me via my Peerwith.Expert page: http://peerwith.expert/adambodley
Best,
Adam

By Sindhoora Bhargavi
I enjoy editing. Not the job, but the process. I get a kick out of digging into the minds of authors and their experiments (“I wonder what they were thinking here…”, “Nah, that doesn’t sound right!”, “I bet this is not what they meant to say!”) and, occasionally, having my mind blown (“Wow! This is such a cool study!”).
I joined Peerwith as an expert for scientific editing in the life sciences about 6 months ago. I began editing in earnest in 2015, and, over the past 3 years, I have freelanced with several author service providers, where the freelancers’ work is passed on to clients with (or sometimes without) in-house quality review. So, knowing that I wouldn’t have this safety net of in-house review to fall back on, I initially felt a little intimidated about offering my services on a peer-to-peer (P2P) platform like Peerwith. I have had some experience with Peerwith clients since then, and I am a better and more confident editor now than I was 6 months ago.
I attribute this improvement to Peerwith’s P2P nature, which places the experts and clients on equal footing. I like that I can unhesitatingly give my clients advice and comments as their peer, without having to kowtow or treat them with kid gloves. I like it more that my clients treat me as a peer and trust me to have the capability and expertise to assist with their manuscripts. It is this rapport which moves the author–expert relationship from being one of a business transaction to one of a collaboration built on mutual respect and confidence: This is an absolute must to ensure that the expert is as invested in the manuscript as the author is and that the manuscript receives the best possible treatment.
Peerwith’s structure ensures not just the fair treatment of clients and client expectations but also the fair treatment of experts. Being a non-native English-speaking editor, I cannot but emphasize how a P2P structure helps address the often-unjustified reluctance of clients to request non-native English editors and that of author service providers to advertise that they engage such editors. The language skills required for editing at a journal-publishing level come with deliberate practice—and not as a matter of course—even for native English speakers. And, the level of skills required for scientific editing is another niche altogether.
The demand for language-editing services for scientific publications is increasing — not just because of the ever-increasing volume of manuscripts being churned out, but also because peer reviewers have invariably started asking for language editing, even when all that a manuscript requires is thorough proofreading. This demand notwithstanding, there are only so many native English speakers with advanced degrees to go around. So, even when authors are promised scientific editing by native English speakers, chances are their manuscripts are edited by equally capable non-native English editors with advanced degrees or native English-speaking graduates.
A P2P platform like Peerwith strips away this layer of anonymity between authors and experts. What you see and choose is what you get. As an author, you have the benefit of browsing through expert bios and peer reviews before choosing to correspond with an expert whom you find best equipped for the task at hand, regardless (or despite) their non-native status.
I believe it is very important for authors and experts to converse directly with each other, without routing messages and tasks through an intermediary who often can’t and shouldn’t have to be held accountable for the quality of work. This is where I think author service providers leave authors disgruntled.
This—and the fact that authors won’t have to pay through the nose for publication services—is why I believe Peerwith’s structure works and why it will be attractive to researchers and students, especially those from institutes that won’t reimburse authors for availing such services.
If you’re an author, Peerwith’s P2P structure offers you transparency and complete control in choosing an expert on the basis of merit and experience, for a fraction of the service fee you’d otherwise expect to pay. And, it makes us experts bring our best to the table on a consistent basis: It is thrilling for us when a manuscript we’ve assisted with gets published — and, of course, we do love ourselves some good ratings!
Ms. Sindhoora Bhargavi Gopala Reddy, MSc is an expert active on Peerwith. Visit Sindhoora's Peerwith.Expert page here: http://peerwith.expert/sindhoorabhargavigopalareddy

Original posted on ISB&Index blog here.
Mrs. Pierke Bosschieter is an expert active on Peerwith. Visit Pierke's Peerwith.Expert page here: http://peerwith.expert/pierkebosschieter
It’s indisputable that an index is crucial to the dissemination of the knowledge you have gathered in your latest book, so I won’t explain why your book should have an index. What I want you to consider is engaging a professional indexer who can make you an outstanding index, instead of doing the job yourself or letting one of your students do an inadequate job.
1. EXPERIENCE
A professional indexer has usually years of experience in indexing books in your field. Most authors, with a very few exceptions, find compiling an index a daunting task. You will have to learn the craft by reading numerous books and maybe even follow a course or two. Before you start the index you will also have to understand all the principles and standards of information retrieval. Do you think that all this will guarantee you an outstanding index on your first attempt or even your second or third?
2. SPECIALIZATION
A professional indexer is usually specialized in a few academic subjects. This means that the indexer is very familiar with these topics, knows the jargon and will be able to point out errors, discrepancies or repetitions in the text. The indexer is very good in giving you a new perspective on the effectiveness of your presentation.
3. SOFTWARE
A professional indexer uses specialized indexing software, to support the process of manually compiling an index, just like MS Word supports you in writing you texts. This software isn’t cheap. Are you going to spend $500 on software that you only use once or twice and that has a steep learning curve to boot?
4. LAYOUT
A professional indexer can comply with every publisher’s request concerning layout and index style. This is mostly done with the help of the above mentioned software. As an author you have to learn about all these layout minutia and find out how to implement them using the software. No easy task.
5. TECHNICAL ADVANCES
A professional indexer can deal with most of the technical advances in the publishing industry. It is not exceptional for publishers to ask for an embedded index in Word, InDesign or Framemaker, especially when a book will also be published as an e-book. Most professional indexers can deal with these requests.
6. COST EFFECTIVENESS
A professional indexer is more cost effective than you think. Because of experience, specialization and the use of specialized software a professional indexer can work quick, accurate and efficient. This means the indexer can do the work much quicker than you, the author, who still has to learn the ropes.
7. STRESS LEVELS
A professional indexer can reduce your stress levels. Indexes are compiled at the end of the production process, in the same few weeks in which you have to check the proofs. So why make this stressful period, even more stressful by planning to do the index as well.
8. ENHANCEMENT
A professional index enhances your book. You have spend several years of your life writing this book. Copy-editor, designer and proofreader have all worked their magic. Special attention has been paid to paper, font and book cover. Then, as a tailpiece, you have an outstanding index made by a professional. It will reflect very favourable on your own professionalism and researchers in your field will find it a pleasure to use your book.
Request Pierke's service on Peerwith.

Dr. Miodrag Lukic, PhD, is an expert active on Peerwith. Visit Miodrag's Peerwith.Expert page here: http://peerwith.expert/drmiodraglukic
Being a scientist today does not assume only to be good in your background scientific discipline but rather being capable to handle the entire process: idea brainstorming, the realization of research, analysis of the results, and writing scientific publications. However, this does not reflect the struggle behind the highly demanding and competitive scientific publishing process. “Publish or perish” is not an exaggeration anymore; it is a bare truth, faced by the scientific community nowadays. The combat for high impact journals and a high number of citations actually widens the gap between the possibilities and great expectations. Those at the first line are definitely early stage researchers but also experienced scientists, struggling with a strong competition, inadequate advising, technical issues, and finally, time limitation for appropriate communication of their scientific achievements. The scientific work is often fully project-funded and the allowances directly depend on the number and quality of published research papers.
The globally increasing demands in academic publishing created a natural reaction reflected in numerous companies working in the field of academic services, providing assistance in the quality improvement. The majority of them focus on language editing services and journal guidance, usually done by freelance scientific and language editors. The guaranteed quality they compensate with high rates. However, the clients are actually in contact with the middlemen rather than with the scientific editors. That is major but not the only shortcoming of such academic services since interaction with experts can improve the final product better than filling in different general forms regarding the request. Before the language editing and journal guidance, there are several determining steps. The first issue in realization of a thesis or a paper comes from a broadly defined topic but sometimes also lacks the appropriate expertise. Thus, a thorough literature survey is necessary to understand the research question and realize the current state-of-art in the field. Literature search is not an easy task but rather a hard-digging work, since the amount of data being published from different sources every day, is vast. That’s why the appropriate research studies picked up from the batch and the feasible research program clearly defined. Furthermore, assuming that researchers have a hands-on experience with different scientific equipment, the next part of the battle for scientific paper publishing is an analysis of the results. Those researchers working experimentally clearly know that measurements take up to 20 % of the time, while the remaining is used for appropriate analysis. Whether it is not done correctly, it yields misleading conclusions and loss of time and resources. What would be of great help is an appropriate scientific advising at that time. That would save the time and give the opportunity to learn fast and keep the pace with a global development. Besides the analysis of the results, a big challenge is to prepare attractive figures, multi-component layers, and thus, basically, save the space of journal, since a good figure is always worth of 1000 words. If you look at figures presented in Nature, Science, or ACS journals, it is clear that they are quite good. And it is not by accident that such approach is appreciated. Once having the adequate literature survey, (experimental) results, and high-quality figure presentations, then the manuscript draft should be written. The academic writing style has a clear structure, free of any arbitrariness and long descriptions. Only exact scientific information - every sentence has its proper position, and the presented information has to be consistent throughout the text. All of these precede the language editing and journal guidance services, mostly offered in the area of academic publishing services. Considering the current prices, only language editing and journal guidance of a typical research paper requires not less than 500 USD in average, it is reasonable to question how much does consulting and support during the entire manuscript preparation process cost? The old-fashioned way of using academic services by putting a request to a service provider company will be overcome indeed. What researchers need is a direct contact with experts, customized quotes, flexibility and reliability, and a high-level of trust and transparency of the entire process. The only middlemen required should provide security, transparency, and fair and ethical process. Such approach already exists in different other branches, like finding accommodation, flights, etc.
That’s why it is my pleasure write about a newly launched platform Peerwith, a platform for expert-led researcher services, offering researchers the opportunity to select, connect, and collaborate with experts in researcher services to improve the quality of their academic work. When I had read the article in Nature about Peerwith, I thought it could be a really exciting journey for researchers starting their careers but also for experienced scientists. The idea of peer-2-peer communication is actually great since many young colleagues, unfortunately, face huge difficulties along their road toward a degree. The experts on Peerwith basically cover all academic disciplines and offer fair fees for services tailored to individual requirements. With the secure marketplace environment, the mission is to aid the advancement of science by helping researchers globally improve the quality of their academic work. What differentiates Peerwith from other academic services companies is unlimited freedom with whom to collaborate and what exactly are the issues. That means - different services at one place. It is important that only after you are satisfied with the outcome, the funds can be transferred to the related expert. And nevertheless, every expert on the platform is graded after the completed request, so you can see the previous comments on the expert’s work, relevant experience, and you can actively contribute. One of the outcomes from such approach is making lasting relationships with experts to support your work during the entire degree studies and further research work, with undiscovered benefits. At Peerwith, the expertise provided is highly professional, correct, precise, and fair.
I have collaborated with numerous researchers from England, Ireland, Iraq, Malaysia, UAE, China, etc., and with a quite number made lasting relationships for the future, possibly for together work as well. The best things come from collaborations. And what is very important, as the academic work is a very sensitive class of work, Peerwith platform offers a unique level of trust, since all experts had to declare regarding all related ethical issues, but also, you will know with whom you work and can check their credentials, and all your correspondence always stays secured in the Peerwith system. Your data and money are just safe. Basically, that would be collaboration with a high level of trust. And all researchers should understand that experts will not do work for them but just help them to improve their knowledge of the particular piece of an academic work.
Peerwith also offers institutional collaboration that helps to increase institution’s publication output and scientific impact with a minimized administration costs. Besides, there is a great possibility for promotional activities where one can promote the latest research and increase the chances to go toward scale-up and industrial production. Having in mind all of these advantages offered by Peerwith, I strongly believe that a new generation in academic services for researchers and experts has begun, and we expect a lot of good and successful collaborations in the future.

Original posted here: https://mariekekrijnen.com/
Dr. Marieke Krijnen, PhD, is an expert active on Peerwith. Visit Marieke's Peerwith.Expert page here: http://peerwith.expert/mariekekrijnen
Giving your work to an editor is scary. I get it. I really do.
You’ve labored over something, thought about it for a long time, made an enormous effort to organize your thoughts and transform them into a coherent, well-structured text. And then you send it to a stranger, perhaps the first person who will look at it besides you, who will read it, change it, and leave her thoughts along the way. What is to say that an editor is not going to make your text worse? Why would you trust someone with it?
As someone who has several publications to her name, I understand this feeling. I’ve always been very reluctant to send my work out for commenting or correction. As an editor therefore, I am always humbled by the trust my clients bestow on me by sending me their manuscripts and allowing me to work on them.
I want to assure you that good editors do not betray that trust. As an editor, I follow three principles to make sure that your work is in safe hands: I am careful, transparent, and flexible. I am stealing these three principles from Carol Fisher Seller’s The Subversive Copyeditor, pp. 14–16. I purchased this book a while ago and we’re currently reading parts of it in my copyediting course at Queens University, Canada.
To be careful means that before I even start working on your manuscript, we clearly define the scope of my work together. Do you want me to improve your language and expression or just your grammar? What style should I use? Do you want me to format your headings? It means that I always use track changes so that you can see exactly what I’ve done and can accept or reject it.
To be transparent means that if I have to make a decision that affects the entire manuscript (about capitalizing headings, for example) and that we didn’t discuss beforehand, I contact you before I go ahead. It means that I will explain any changes I made if they’re not obvious. It means that for larger manuscripts, I will keep a style sheet where I record all decisions I made in relation to spelling, style, punctuation, and so on, and I share this with you when the job is finished.
Finally, to be flexible means that I will listen to you and negotiate. If a term shouldn’t be capitalized according to the style we are using, but you have a reason for writing it in that way, I will listen. If you don’t agree with a change I made, let’s talk about it. It is your work, at the end! My job is to make your writing accurate, consistent, and correct.
So, please don’t be afraid to send me your work, I promise that I will respect it and treat it the way I would want my own work to be treated!
Request Marieke's service on Peerwith.