Librarians are taking on greater responsibility for assisting faculty and researchers with the publications process. Many of these authors may be publishing in English as non-native speakers, and though the content may be excellent, the word choice and sentence structure may need a little (or a little more) help.

More than 11,000 researchers have used the service since it was introduced two years ago.

Instead of dusting off your Oxford English Dictionary, introduce your writers to the English Language Editing Service provided online via Elsevier’s WebShop. After users upload their manuscripts, professional editors ensure they are free of grammatical and spelling errors within five business days. More than 11,000 researchers have used the service since it was introduced two years ago.

“The growth in usage has been exponential,” says Fabian Kersten, WebShop Manager. “We attribute this to our return customers, their recommendations and, of course, the quality of the service provided.”

In addition to English Language Editing, the WebShop offers a number of services to authors, including creation of scientific and medical illustrations and translation from several languages to English.

“I’ve used the WebShop four times and found it very useful. International conferences require two versions of articles – in Russian and English. For me it is very difficult to translate work written in Russian to English, because I like to use long sentences with adverbial and participial constructions. Therefore, after I translate, I want to have someone with English language expertise edit it. I tried to use local services, but I encountered problems with the professional vocabulary. This problem does not appear when I used WebShop.”

Alexander Belov, Head of the IT Department, State National Research Polytechnical University of Perm Scientific Library

As the academic world continues to globalize, publishing internationally and reducing rejections becomes more important to authors. These concerns were paramount in Beijing Normal University’s recent decision to enter into an institutional arrangement with the English Language Editing service.

“Beijing Normal University attaches great importance to internationalization,” said Kai Xiao, Deputy Director for International Exchange and Cooperation at Beijing Normal University. “However, English language is a bottleneck for our faculty and students to publish internationally, especially in high-impact journals. By using Elsevier’s Language Editing Services, including a customized workflow tailored to the needs of BNU, we are able to remove that language barrier. We believe this will greatly increase the interest and confidence among faculty and students in publishing their research in English.”

Elsevier offers various ways in which institutions can facilitate access to Elsevier Language Services, ranging from pre-payment models to local language submission interfaces and various discount opportunities. If you would like to discuss the possibilities for your institution or department, please contact Fabian Kersten or visit the Elsevier WebShop for more information.