Formatting Academic & Scientific Documents in Word
Many academics and scientists write their research documents in Microsoft Word and some of them even make good use of a fair share of its helpful formatting functions. A great many researchers do not, however, which is unfortunate because Word can do a great deal for authors who are striving to use structural and other formatting elements that will improve the presentation and accessibility of their writing for readers and help them meet the demanding guidelines and expectations of scholarly publishers. However, authors must understand what Word can do to meet the formatting challenges presented by their research and also know exactly how to make the program do it. The three articles I introduce below will help with both.
Academics and scientists tend to think of content rather than the spaces around it when they write about their research, but effective spacing of various kinds is absolutely essential for communicating complex information clearly in writing. This article describes in detail how authors can use the many spacing, indentation, alignment and other space-oriented functions available in Word to lay out the research material they need to share in an effective and consistent manner.
The internal headings of a research document act as its structural apparatus, enabling the clear presentation of material and outlining the argument of an academic or scientific author. This article provides step-by-step instructions for using Word’s heading styles to add, format and modify the internal headings of a book, paper, thesis or other scholarly text. Specific examples are given for three levels of heading, but can easily be applied to more.
If Word’s heading styles are used in an academic or scientific document, an active table of contents can be added to the text. This is particularly helpful when an electronic manuscript is long or complicated or if readers are likely to flip back and forth through the material. This final article explains exactly how to use headings designed with Word to construct an active table of contents that enables readers to jump quickly to any part of a document.
Why Is Academic Proofreading Services Important?
Effective academic proofreading is absolutely vital to the production of high-quality scholarly and professional documents. When done carefully, correctly and thoroughly, academic proofreading can make the difference between writing that communicates successfully with its intended readers and writing that does not. No author creates a perfect text without reviewing, reflecting on and revising what he or she has written, and academic proofreading and scientific editing are extremely important of this process.
Why are scientific editing and academic proofreading important for academic and scientific authors? First and foremost, a proofreader brings a fresh and ideally objective perspective to your writing. He or she will almost certainly not be as familiar with your research as you are and in most cases will have no predetermined idea about what you are trying to communicate. This means that a proofreader will be able to focus on exactly what your text does say and catch ambiguities and errors that you, as the author well aware of what you want to say, may read right over without noticing. If the proofreader is a trained professional who is an expert in the English language and a specialist in your subject area, he or she will have the skills to correct and polish your grammar, spelling and punctuation, determine if your references are accurate, thorough and consistent, and ensure that your writing meets the high standards expected in your discipline and field. An academic proofreader will also have the disposition and time to give your writing the exacting attention it requires to ensure that every detail is as it should be so that your work communicates with precision and sophistication. Many members of our research paper editing and proofreading team focus on journal editing, manuscript editing, dissertation proofreading services, thesis editing services and phd thesis proofreading. An academic proofreader can be thought of as an author’s ambassador, and while an author can and should be his or her own ambassador whenever possible, it is always wise to benefit from an ambassador with the appropriate linguistic and academic skills to ensure that your writing represents both you and your work as professionally and effectively as possible. Some of our carefully trained editors and proofreaders work exclusively on PhD thesis editing, master’s dissertation proofreading, bachelor’s dissertation proofreading, thesis editing, dissertation editing, thesis proofreading and dissertation proofreading, applying their education and instructional skills in providing thesis editing and dissertation proofreading services that help advanced students to improve the formatting and language of their theses and dissertations.
Why is journal article editing important for the readers you hope to reach? The most obvious answer is that a journal proofreader is a reader, often the first reader beyond the author of a text, and a reader who acts as an advocate for all future readers. Professional journal proofreaders serve the needs of authors by anticipating the needs of readers, and doing so with an objective but critical eye alert to potential problems. Descriptions of methodology and explanations of trends that seem perfectly clear to the author who is familiar with the material may in fact prove ambiguous, confusing and even misleading for readers who do not possess the same knowledge. Tables and figures that are not clearly designed, labelled and referred to may obscure procedures and findings for viewers instead of highlighting and clarifying them. Arguments presented in language that contains errors of grammar, spelling and punctuation may fail to convince readers even when the evidence presented is extremely persuasive, and terminology designed for communicating in sophisticated and specific ways may lose readers entirely if it is not defined, explained and used with care. An academic proofreader, scientific proofreader, medical proofreader or journal proofreader can detect and help you resolve these and many other kinds of problems that prevent the successful communication of complex and ground-breaking research.
Why is proofreading services important when submitting your scholarly writing for publication? As a general rule, the editors responsible for accepting or rejecting the manuscripts that academics and scientists submit for publication are inundated with text. They receive far more submissions than the journals and publishers for whom they work can ever publish, so they are looking for reasons to reject manuscripts as much as they are seeking reasons to accept them. A manuscript that accurately and precisely adheres to a publisher’s guidelines, boasts a structure that organises material in a logical and effective fashion, and uses language that clearly and efficiently communicates facts and ideas is sure to receive more positive attention and far more likely to be successfully published than a manuscript that does not achieve such a high standard. Since these are the very aspects of scholarly writing that a professional proofreader can help you perfect, engaging the services of a qualified academic or scientific proofreader can prove invaluable, particularly if your manuscript has been rejected due to problems with language and formatting. Once you have benefitted from the proofreading services of a professional proofreader, you will no doubt be able to determine for yourself why PRS proofreading is so very important to successful authors.
Our scientific editing, medical editing, bioscience editing, life science editing, environmental science editing, pharmaceutical science editing, physical science editing, agricultural science editing, LaTeX paper editing, social science editing, political science editing, engineering paper editing, psychology editing, research paper editing, manuscript editing, humanities editing, journal article editing, biomedical science editing, planetary science editing, plant science editing, material science editing, veterinary science editing, behavioural science editing and neurosurgery editing services for authors of scientific papers and reports are especially popular, but we also excel at book editing and have the experience and expertise to proofread and edit books and papers of all kinds across every scholarly discipline.
If you are in the process of preparing an article for an academic or scientific journal, or planning one for the near future, you may well be interested in a new book, Guide to Journal Publication, which is available on our Tips and Advice on Publishing Research in Journals website.