ASEA SEC 02


THE SCIENCE OF COPYEDITING: AN ANALYSIS OF REVISION RATES IN ISEC SUBMISSIONS

DEBITO ARUDOU, AMARJIT SINGH


Abstract

Copyeditors are under-recognized for their contributions to the publishing world. Through complex editorial processes outlined in this paper, copyeditors quietly shepherd researchers’ work into the academic world by making their research more readable. This paper analyzes ASEA-SEC-2 submission successes and failures, pointing out trends behind acceptances and Requests For Revisions (RFRs) before publication. The findings reveal that the ISEC Copyeditor’s work generally went beyond cosmetic edits: Nearly half of the papers that reached the Copyeditor had to be returned to authors. A significant number of those RFRs were due to general violations of ISEC Guidelines (e.g., excessive page length, illegible illustrations, and lack of citations) that should have been returned to authors before they reached the Copyeditor. If contributors (and ISEC editors) had paid more attention to guidelines, many man-hours of labor would have been saved, and their research disseminated into the scientific community more efficiently and cost-effectively. This paper aims to increase awareness in the enormity of the task behind copyediting for conference articles, in hopes that contributors will cooperate more closely with (and editors more strictly enforce) journal guidelines in future.

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