English Correction of Academic Papers
Proofreading, editing, and rewriting of scientific papers
in English in the humanities and social sciences.
Sometimes your argument or idea makes perfect sense in your native language but is very hard to understand when written down in English. That is why it is not enough to just have your sentences corrected. You need someone who tries to understand your point and who helps you to make it as clear and strong as possible. That is what I do: I do not just look at your words and sentences, but also at what you are trying to say, and I will help you to say it as clearly and convincingly as possible. And I won’t stop at what’s already in your paper — if I happen to have suggestions to improve your paper, I will let you know.
I specialize in correcting papers in the humanities and social sciences (philosophy, linguistics, sociology, psychology, geography, and so forth) written by native Japanese and Chinese speakers.
Who am I?
My name is Lajos Brons. I am a philosopher and social scientist, and have been living in Japan for more than 15 years. I have published three books in English and more than 25 papers in various international journals. (A full list of my publications is available here or here.) I am an interdisciplinary scientist and have published papers on topics ranging from contemporary (mostly analytic) philosophy to cultural geography, from Indian and Chinese philosophy to economic sociology, and from linguistics to moral psychology.
I have also been a referee for a number of international journals and have written reviews of more than 40 papers submitted to those journals. And I have functioned as a guest editor of an academic journal as well, so I know how every part of the publishing process works.
In addition to correcting papers (and writing my own, of course), I teach philosophy, logic, and ethics (in English) at a small, private university. I have also taught statistics, social science research methods, linguistics, geography, and academic/scholarly writing.
What services do I offer?
Proofreading, editing, and – if necessary – complete rewriting of your paper, book, presentation, or conference poster to make it as clear and convincing as possible. My goal is to help you to get your paper accepted by an international journal.
Microsoft Word, Open Office, and LaTeX files are all OK.
Optional additional services include:
• adaptation to journal guidelines;
• reference checking;
• (re-) drawing figures, graphs, and maps;
• cover letter writing;
• abstract writing.
Prices
The standard rate for proofreading and correcting is 9 yen per word. (Tax not included. Minimum: 2500 yen.) If your budget is insufficient, contact me to discuss what I can do for you.
The price of additional services depends on the amount of work involved. If very little extra work is involved I will do it for free. Otherwise, the price is 2500 yen per estimated work hour. Contact me to discuss what you need and for an estimate of the costs.
For inquiries, please contact me by email:
mail [at] lajosbrons [dot] net.
How I work
When you send me a paper to correct, the first thing I do is make an estimate (見積書) and send that to you. If you agree with the price, I start correcting/editing work.
In the first phase of correcting/editing, I go through the text sentence by sentence, trying to understand what you are saying and coming up with better ways to say it if necessary. It is not uncommon that I rewrite every sentence. In this phase, I also often consult some of your sources (and read parts of them), to better understand your arguments. (If there is a source that I don't have access to, but that I need to understand your argument, I might ask you to send me a PDF.)
After I went through the whole text once in this way, fixing sentences, I go over it again. In this second round I'm focusing more on the arguments and less on the individual sentences. I usually still change sentences, but I sometimes also move sentences around, add sentences, and sometimes even move whole paragraphs to other locations in the text, if that makes your argument clearer. Throughout these first two rounds of correcting, I usually also add comments and questions. I might ask for clarification if there is something I don't understand. I might point out something that seems (to me!) a weakness in your argument. I might have suggestions for further references, or for further research, if I believe that that is necessary, or other suggestions for improvement of your paper. Often, these comments are quite similar to the kind of comments you might get in peer review.After this, I go over the text two more times (for a total of four rounds) for further polishing, resulting in the first edited verion, which I will send back to you. Usually, this is about a week after I started working on your text, but depending on the length of your text (and how much other work I have to do), it might be sooner or later.
The first edited version will (usually) have questions and comments. Whether you respond to those is your choice, but your paper will probably get better if you do. The most important thing to do at this stage, however, is to check my corrections. I may have misunderstood something, leading to a "correction" that is actually wrong. After you checked the first edited version (and responded to my comments), you can send the paper back to me for further rounds of correction/editing.
After I get the paper back from you (after you checked my corrections and responded to my comments), the first thing I do is check what you changed and read your responses. Based on that I make further changes if necessary. After that, I go through your paper at least two more times for further polishing. When all of that is finished, I send the second edited version back to you, together with an invoice (請求書; I also include 納品書, which you might need as well). Usually the second edited version is the final version, but in exceptional cases, I have further questions and comments.
I don't use AI, and neither should you
AI tools might seem helpful in writing, but more often they are not. Unless the AI understands exactly what you want to say, it will probably make your argument(s) harder to understand. You'll end up with something that looks like nice English sentences, but that doesn't really mean anything, and certainly doesn't mean what you want it to mean. For me, as a proofreader/editor (or a general reader!), what is most important is that I understand your arguments. I can fix "bad English", but I can only do that if I understand what you are trying to say. Using AI to "fix" your English only makes it more difficult to understand that, so instead of improving your paper, AI tools are more likely to make it worse.
About the price
Correcting and editing a 80,000 word paper is about a week of work on average. If I'd have no other obligations, I could correct and edit four or five 80,000 word papers in a month. This would result in a monthly income of roughly 320,000 yen (before tax!), which would be sufficient to pay the bills and keep me (and my family) alive. (In practice this never happens, however, so I need additional sources of income as well.)