Support Services for Authors

Avoid potential delays in entering peer review because your manuscript does not conform to the guidelines of your publication of choice.

We will check that your manuscript conforms to the specific guidelines of your publication of choice (including meeting word counts, following reference formatting instructions, and noting necessary documents for submission). We will then make the necessary changes to the manuscript whenever possible and inform you of any changes you must make yourself.

As an additional service, we are also able to check that your manuscript adheres to standard reporting guidelines, such as those available on the EQUATOR Network including STROBE (observational studies), CONSORT (randomized trials), ARRIVE (animal pre-clinical studies), PRISMA (systematic reviews), and SPIRIT (study protocols).

Note: If the journal's guidelines ask you to suggest potential reviewers for your manuscript, we will not suggest reviewers or co-authors for your manuscript. This remains your responsibility as authors. (See the ThinkSCIENCE Statement of Ethics for further details.)

Submit our certificate of translation, editing, or proofreading together with your manuscript to the journal or conference. The certificate confirms that the manuscript was completed by a specialist translator and/or editor. Certificates of back-translation are also available. Certificates are provided upon request.

One in three scholarly journals now uses iThenticate software to detect plagiarism in submitted papers (iParadigms, 2014) and more than 20% of submissions to leading journals are rejected due to plagiarism (iParadigms, 2012).

If you are concerned that your manuscript has text that is copied from, or that is closely similar to, text in previously published papers, even when citations are present, we can help. In our Originality Check and Advice service, which is designed to minimize the risk of plagiarism of text before you submit your paper, we check your manuscript using iThenticate software, advise how to address the areas identified by the check, and revise your paper.

This extra support service is added to the editing service you have chosen (i.e., Comprehensive Editing, Proofreading, or EditingPLUS). It includes the iThenticate check* together with our professional advice and revision work. The iThenticate check itself involves checking your manuscript text against 92 million works published by journals and other publishers and 50 billion current and archived web pages. Your manuscript will be handled securely and in absolute confidence, and the results of the check will be shared only between you and our editing team.

When the service is ordered, we will run the iThenticate anti-plagiarism check and within 1 working day we will provide you with written advice about resolving the issues highlighted by the check. If you agree with our advice, we will proceed to revising and editing your paper.

We are an Associate Corporate Member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). We offer our Originality check and advice service as part of our efforts to promote compliance with ethical standards in scholarly publishing (see the ThinkSCIENCE Statement of Ethics for further details). We do not and will not obfuscate instances of plagiarism by paraphrasing text that does not properly credit sources.

*We have an agreement in place with iParadigms, the operators of iThenticate detection software, to offer this anti-plagiarism check as part of ThinkSCIENCE's comprehensive services aimed at ensuring the highest ethical standards in scientific and academic publishing. We do not guarantee the detection of other instances of plagiarism not highlighted by the iThenticate check.

Many authors are now making graphical abstracts, infographics, plain language summaries, lay summaries, and other enhanced content to submit alongside their research papers. These so-called “enhanced publications” supplement and complement journal and conference papers.

We can help you conceive, write, and translate/edit any enhanced publications you decide to make to increase your research impact.

If you are not familiar with creating enhanced publications yet, and you’re not sure whether they would help to increase the impact of your latest paper that you plan to submit, check out our featured article for explanations and practical tips on creating the most common types of enhanced content.

If you want to hear how a native speaker of English would deliver your conference presentation or keynote speech, our team can help. We can provide an audio recording to help you practice your pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm.

Choose from 3 different speeds of speech—native speaker speed, slightly slowed native speaker speed, and considerably slowed native speaker speed—depending on your needs. Of the 3 speeds, the considerably slowed speed focuses more on pronunciation, although of course we maintain intonation throughout.

You may order an audio recording in combination with translation or editing work. We can deliver the audio recording to you in a variety of formats, including an .mp3 file, .wav file, or CD, making it easy for you to listen at home or work, in the car, or on the train.

Some online submission systems are relatively easy to navigate, but others are long and complex. If you are busy or concerned about misunderstanding the instructions for your publication or conference of choice, we will upload your files for you and ensure that all the necessary information is entered correctly and completely.

We ask you for only the specific data required during submission and, of course, input none of our own information. We simply ensure the submission process occurs smoothly on your behalf.

A few journals prohibit third-party submission of papers on the authors' behalf. Therefore, we will check immediately whether this service is permitted. If it is not, one of our project coordinators can help you to submit, by providing advice (in English or Japanese) in real time over the telephone while you work through the submission process.

Keep a record of important research, training, or conference events by having the audio or audiovisual material transcribed. Simply provide us with a DVD or digital sound file of your event and tell us how quickly you want the transcript.

The transcribed content (in English or Japanese) will be provided in a Word file. Your transcript will have the grammatical mistakes and fillers that are common in spoken language cleaned up.

Our transcription service for highly specialist content is priced based on the length of the recorded audio you submit. This helps you determine the costs easily and clearly before we start your job.

Sometimes poor audio quality will make the transcription more difficult to complete. We complete transcriptions on a "best efforts" basis, indicating clearly any segments of speech that are not clearly discernible and, whenever possible, include our best judgment of the words spoken based on the context and content of the speech.

• Combine with our full comprehensive editing or proofreading service to produce a transcript suitable for publication.
• Combine with our translation service to publish the content in another language.
• Combine with our writing service to create a summary paper or to provide content for an editorial piece.
• Request that timing markers be added to the transcription as an additional service component.

Our team has many years of experience in the publication industry as authors, reviewers, journal editors, and journal copyeditors, so if you would like support in any areas not mentioned above, please let us know and we'll do our very best to help.

Examples of just some of the ways we support our customers:

• Reducing the length of manuscripts
• Explaining what certain comments from reviewers mean
• Suggesting improvements to the wording of job applications
• Drafting letters to journal editors to request longer revision periods, asking for permission to republish in a different language, and appealing against rejection of a paper
• Making a presentation (speech and slides) from a written paper
• Checking the cultural appropriateness of recommendation letters, invitations, business correspondence, application forms, etc.
• Editing/translating peer review comments before the reviewers send them to journal editors
• Explaining differences between subscription publishing and the various types of open access publishing
• Providing individual consultation or group training in different specialist subjects on writing, presenting at conferences, and understanding the latest in research and publication ethics.

You can contact us by telephone at our Tokyo office (+81-3-5541-4400) or use our Contact Us form.