Over the years, it has become apparent that many manuscripts are rejected by peer-reviewed journals because the use of the English language may be inadequate or unsatisfactory. Very often, the scientific content of these papers is excellent and worthy of publication. It seems a pity, therefore, that the authors of such papers struggle to publish their excellent scientific work.
Cardiology in the Young has initiated a new service for authors, whose first language may not be English, and who struggle to pass on the correct meaning and message of their research and manuscript. The Associate Editor for Mentorship is Professor Shakeel Qureshi, and a sub-committee has been set up to help with this important task. The members of this sub-committee are Dr Lee Benson (Canada), Dr Rui Anjos (Portugal), Dr Bharat Dalvi (India), Dr Kuberan Pushparajah (United Kingdom), and Dr Gurleen Sharland (United Kingdom). The role of the members of this sub-committee is not completely to rewrite the manuscript for the authors, nor for the authors to submit their work to this sub-committee for rewriting, but to help the authors to improve it. The submitted manuscript will still need to be peer-reviewed as normal. Only if the reviewers think that the scientific content is worth publishing, but the authors need help to improve English, would help be sought from the Associate Editor for Mentorship and the members of the sub-committee. Once comments for improvement have been received from this sub-committee, these will be fed back to the authors for guidance. The authors will then have a chance to improve their manuscript and resubmit it for publication.
Cambridge University Press additionally lists a number of language-editing services that authors may consider. 1
This is viewed as an important step in the development of Cardiology in the Young. It will be interesting to see how this progresses in the future.
