Editorial pubs.acs.org/OPRD
The Lost Art of Profweading?
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Of course, some typos can be a source of amusement. I remember a UK government report on six companies who had sponsored an initiative on Asymmetric Synthesis. In the report, on several occasions, the organisations were referred to as the sex companies; the double entendres that resulted from this caused a great deal of hilarity in our office. I leave it to your imagination as to the sources of the humour. Finally, I just hope there are no typos to be found in this editorial!!!
he other evening I was in a restaurant, looking at the menu, when I noticed a couple of typos, and it reminded me of how many other occasions this had happened in restaurants. Why are chefs or owners of eating establishments so poor at proofreading (or spelling)? The following day I was watching a BBC TV programme, a detective story, where the action involved a book with an unusual title. I could not believe it when I saw a typo in the title of the book, and I had to rewind to check that it was not my mistake; they had spelled atheist with an extra “e” in it! These things occasionally happen to me, and I am always disappointed when I see mistakes on my own company’s Web site or in articles published in Organic Process Research & Development (OPR&D), particularly editorials! Unfortunately, I am finding more and more errors when I read books, newspapers, and journals, especially in articles on the Internet, and wonder if we have become too reliant on the “spillchucker” as it is sometimes called in our house. I am reviewing a book from a well-known publisher at the moment, and it is littered with typos and detracts from the otherwise excellent text. Authors of papers may think that the job of editing a paper is to identify and remove all errors, and the reviewers, editorial staff, and ACS do as much as we can to minimise typos. However, at the end of the day, it is the authors’ responsibility to check the final proofs for errors, and not just the senior author, but all authors should be given the opportunity to proofread the manuscript. Sometimes, someone who is not familiar with the work can do a better job of proofreading than the author, and so it may be worthwhile to ask a colleague to assist in checking the final proofs. Proofreading needs to be first carried out, however, before the manuscript is submitted, and this is where standards seem to have fallen. I am always amazed that a manuscript, which must have been checked by many scientists and managers within a company (for example in the legal department for permission to publish), can still contain so many errors when initially submitted to the editors. We reserve the right to reject a manuscript as being unfit to send to reviewers if there are too many errors, particularly those which should have been spotted and corrected by better proofreading by the authors. The list of references is where I usually see the most errors; authors from non-English-speaking countries have names that can be tricky to spell, but I am usually able to spot mistakes. However, when the page numbers, year, or volume is incorrect, the reviewer and editor are unlikely to detect an error unless they know the reference intimately; consistency between journal volume number and date is easier to spot, but then we do not know, without looking it up, which number is correct. Please double-check all references for accuracy before submission! If there is an important error of fact in a paper or a serious omission, and this is discovered after publication, then it needs to be corrected by writing to the Editor-in-Chief with a suggested amendment. If approved, this will be published at a later date, so that subsequent readers are aware of the change. © XXXX American Chemical Society
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Trevor Laird, Editor-in-Chief AUTHOR INFORMATION
Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS.
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dx.doi.org/10.1021/op400092g | Org. Process Res. Dev. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
