Is It Ethical to Use an Editing or Writing Service?

Earlier this week, I received a message on LinkedIn in response to one of our marketing posts:

“What possibly is ethical about not writing your own papers? I have trainees who can do that and then they get authorship credit. If you are just here to sell me stuff then I will unlink us.”

It’s a fair question—and one that deserves a thoughtful answer. As someone who has edited and written scientific documents for over 25 years, and who runs a company built around this service, I’d like to explain why ethical writing support is not only acceptable but often necessary.

What Ethical Support Looks Like

Let’s start with what professional editing and writing support is not: it’s not ghostwriting, it’s not authorship, and it’s not an attempt to obscure the origin of scientific ideas.

At Clarity in Science Editing and Writing, we don’t design experiments (except the consulting service), interpret data, or take intellectual credit. We don’t meet authorship criteria—and we don’t want to. Our job is to improve clarity, flow, organization, and tone, so that the scientific content shines.

This is not very different from the editing process that many journals apply after acceptance—only we do it earlier, so reviewers can understand the science the first time.

Guidelines Are Clear: Editing Is Allowed

This kind of support is explicitly allowed by:

• The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)
• The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
• Many funding agencies, including the NIH

These organizations encourage transparency—but they also acknowledge that scientists often need help polishing their writing. Especially those working in a second language.

Who Uses These Services—and Why

Our clients include:

• Clinician-scientists juggling full-time patient care with grant and publication deadlines
• Global researchers doing cutting-edge science but writing in their second (or third) language
• First-time investigators who are still learning how to structure a proposal

These researchers are writing their own papers. They’re generating their own data. But they’re choosing to invest in editorial support so that their work is presented clearly and professionally.

A Matter of Fairness

Professional editing can help level the playing field. It doesn’t guarantee success—but it gives good science a better chance of being read, understood, and funded.

Unedited, unclear writing is often penalized during peer review or grant scoring, even when the underlying science is strong. That’s not fair to the author—or to the science.

The Bottom Line

Ethical writing support is not about cutting corners. It’s about respecting the science and honoring the effort behind it. Our job is to help researchers express their ideas clearly and professionally, without changing the substance of the work.

If we do our job right, you won’t notice us at all—but you will notice the difference in how your work is received.

And that’s worth doing—ethically, and with pride.

 

For more information, see:

1. American Medical Writers Association EMWA, International Society for Medical Publication Professionals. AMWA‒EMWA‒ISMPP Joint Position Statement on the Role of Professional Medical Writers: AMWA; 2017 [cited 2025 6/27/2025]. Available from: https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.amwa.org/resource/resmgr/about_amwa/JointPositionStatement.Profe.pdf.
2. Association AMW. ICMJE Authorship Guidelines and Acknowledging Non-author Contributions 2023 [cited 2025 6/27/2025]. Available from: https://blog.amwa.org/icmje-authorship-guidelines-and-acknowledging-non-author-contributions?utm.
3. Lozano GA. Ethics of using language editing services in an era of digital communication and heavily multi-authored papers. Sci Eng Ethics. 2014;20(2):363-77 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23690133/).