Sometimes, when I reach out to potential clients to see if they are interested in scientific editing or technical writing services from Clarity in Science Editing and Writing, a person acts offended. I hear people tell me how many publications they have already, or how many grants, or they say “I am a native English speaker!” The reality is, most of my clients are native English speakers who are excellent writers. They have the skills necessary to write their papers and get them edited and formatted, so you could say that they don’t need my company. Many have over 100 publications and h-indices over 40. (Mine is 24.) What they don’t have is time.
A story from one client who has used our services for multiple projects is illustrative. He called me to talk about the publication situation in his lab group. He is a great writer and scientist with well over a hundred peer-reviewed publications. Once a month at his lab meetings, he would have all the trainees present the status of their publication projects, including where they stand and what the “hold-up” is, if projects are behind schedule. He quickly realized that the most common status update was “I gave the paper to you [the PI] and I’m waiting for your corrections/revisions.”
When we first spoke, there were a dozen unfinished projects waiting for him to complete them. We started a long-term relationship, using the same writer/editor for all of his projects to promote familiarity and efficiency, and started paring down that list. Best of all, since he knew that he would have at least three projects, he got the institutional volume discount of 20% for his entire institution. Now I am hearing from his colleagues as well.
So please don’t be offended when I suggest that you might benefit from using our scientific manuscript editing or technical writing services. Some really outstanding people already are. I just want to help you achieve your professional goals while giving you back some of your precious time, by doing editing and writing tasks to you can focus on those things that only you can do.