FAQs

It is very easy to submit a manuscript to Bioedit. If you are a new user, simply click New Customers or Create Account on the home page and you will be taken to a secure, encrypted area where you will be asked to provide your name and address and where you will be able to choose a user name and password. If you are an existing user, please login using your existing user name and password, and you will be taken directly to your personal area where you can view previous work and invoices. To upload new work, click add new job. Please supply all the information requested and make sure that the service you request corresponds to what you think your manuscript requires with respect to English editing, the urgency of the editing work, and your budget. You can roughly calculate beforehand how much it will cost by multiplying the cost per word of the service you require by the number of words in the manuscript (excluding the reference section and title page). In the notes section, please inform us about where you intend to submit the manuscript and the name of the editor you would like to edit your manuscript (Comprehensive editing & Comprehensive editing PLUS services only). Please insert a discount code if you have one. This will entitle you to a 10% discount. A discount code is issued every time you pay for the English editing of a manuscript.

Next, click submit job details and you will be taken to an area where you can upload files individually or together. Please do not attempt to upload very large files unless you have a very fast internet connection. Generally speaking, the total size of the files for a given job should not exceed 15 Mb. Please also attach any figures or tables with the manuscript as these will be referred to during the editing process. Remember that your work is held confidential under a legally binding document that all editors at Bioedit must sign, and that your personal area is encrypted and can only be accessed by you and Bioedit.

Initially, you will receive a receipt by email informing you that we have received the paper and that we will soon send you a quote.  You will then receive a quote that will have been calculated on a cost per word basis depending on the service you asked for when you uploaded the paper.  If you are satisfied with the quote, then please login to your personal area on the website and click Make Payment under the current job. You will requested to pay by credit card.  All major credit card are accepted. If you are unable to pay by credit card or if you are unhappy with the quote, then please inform us by email as soon as possible. After we have received the payment, we will perform a check on the subject area of the paper and send it to a subject-specific editor whose qualifications/editing experience are closest to the subject area of the manuscript. You may have chosen an editor from the drop-down menu Choose your Editor when you initially uploaded the manuscript, in which case we will send the manuscript to the editor you designated, if available.  You can follow the progress of your manuscript by logging into your account regularly.

After the manuscript has been edited by the subject-specific editor, it will be checked again by one of our in-house English language editing experts who will make sure that there are no remaining errors in the grammar, spelling, or English usage (Comprehensive editing and Comprehensive editing PLUS only). 

Finally, you will be informed by email that your manuscript is ready for downloading. Please login to your personal area and download the manuscript.

All communication beyond the login page is protected by SSL encryption through RapidSSL, the world's second largest digital certificate provider for secure e-business transactions. This means that no one can access the content of your account, communications between you and your account, or the content of any manuscript or file during the uploading or downloading process.

All editors at Bioedit Ltd have signed a legally-binding confidentiality agreement in which they agree not to divulge the content of any manuscript to anyone else or use it in their own work.

Yes. Please let us know your choice when uploading the paper. We will always endeavour to send your paper for English editing or proofreading to the editor of your choice; however, this is subject to the editor's availability.

Editors at Bioedit Ltd must (i) be native speakers of the English language and have practised English as a first language, (ii) possess a PhD in one of the life or medical sciences, (iii) have a publication record and (iv) have either prior experience of the review process as a referee or have acted as an editor of a peer-reviewed journal in the biosciences or medicine. Additionally, editors must show a consistently high level of quality editing over a three-month period before becoming permanent members of the Bioedit editing team.

All manuscripts must be submitted in MS Word format (all versions, including RTF and MS Word 2010) or in simple text format. We will also accept work written with other word processors that has been converted to Open XML format.

You can pay for the English editing of your paper by credit card, cheque, or bank transfer. If you opt to pay by credit card, you can do this through an encrypted page on our website (WorldPay). Otherwise, you will be supplied with details about how to pay by bank transfer or cheque in the email containing the receipt for the paper.

All our invoices are exclusive of VAT. You will not be charged VAT if you supply us with a registered EC VAT number or if you are based outside of the European community. Please provide us with your VAT number when you upload your paper.

No. Bioedit is the registered trademark of the English proofreading company Bioedit Ltd [EC Trademark 003348745, US Trademark 077724587]. It has nothing to do with the Bioedit sequence alignment editor.

We edit and proofread all types of documents, including grant proposals, letters, manuscripts, papers, reports, theses, publicity, presentations at international conferences, and dissertations in all disciplines of biology, biomedicine, medicine, bioscience, and biotechnology.

Bioedit will edit the English of all files containing tables, figures, and indeed any accompanying material as long as it is accessible to word processing. This usually excludes files in PDF, TIFF, GIF, and JPG formats, but includes PowerPoint and MS Excel files. However, these files, if available, should always be uploaded with the paper as having access to the data helps us to better understand the text and to check for consistency between the text and the data.

You will receive an email informing you that the paper has been edited and is available for downloading from your account on the Bioedit website.

Yes, we do. You will be issued a discount token every time you pay an invoice. This is the number that appears under notes on the job page when you have paid by credit card. Each token provides a 10% discount on the cost of editing the next manuscript. You can combine tokens to accumulate discounts, or share them with your colleagues.

An automatic receipt is sent to your email address immediately after you upload the document(s) to the website. The receipt will be dated and will inform you of the date on which the edited version will be available for downloading from your personal area on the website.

An email containing a quote will be sent to your email address, usually within 5 hours after you receive the receipt for the manuscript. You will be requested to pay the quote by credit card on a secure server on the website. Login into your account and open the current job. Click make payment and you will be directed to a secure page where you can pay by credit card. If you cannot pay by credit card, or if you are unhappy with the quote, please contact us as soon as possible.

You will be requested to pay the amount in the quote you received by email before we start editing your manuscript. After you receive the quote, login into your account and open the current job. Click “make payment” and you will be directed to a secure page where you can pay by credit card. If you cannot pay by credit card, or if you are unhappy with the quote, please contact us as soon as possible.

Yes. You will be issued a payment receipt by Bioedit Ltd immediately after make the payment by credit card. At the same time, you will also recieve another payment receipt from WorldPay, the credit card company that manages secure payments on the website. Both receipts are send to the email address you used when you opened your account with Bioedit.

Most papers submitted to peer-reviewed scientific journals are not accepted for publication the first time. Authors must respond to the criticisms of referees and modify their paper accordingly before resubmitting it again for publication. Bioedit operates a policy where you will not have to pay for the English editing of a revised paper if the following conditions are met:

(i) The new/modified text is highlighted in the revised paper. You can use underlining or coloured fonts.

(ii) The amount of new text does not exceed 10% of the word count of the paper originally edited by Bioedit.

If these two conditions are met, we will only proofread the new/modified text and you will not have to pay. You will receive back the edited version within 3-4 days. 

Note: You can send the same revised manuscript to Bioedit a maximum of two times. Please accept any previous changes in the manuscript visible under MS Word "Track Changes" before proceeding to make new changes in the manuscript.

If the amount of text exceeds 10% of the word count of the original paper originally edited by bioedit or if you have not highlighted the new/modified text appropriately, then we will edit all the manuscript again. You will be charged 70% of the comprehensive editing rate, i.e., 0.04 Euro per word.

Yes, we do. Letters containing responses to editors and referees are treated in exactly the same manner as papers, and are subject to the same editing fees.  Please send us the revised manuscript together with the letter, even if it is not in need of editing. If the revised manuscript is in need of editing, you will not be charged if it meets certain criteria.

You will receive back two files; one containing the manuscript with the changes visible under Track Changes and the other with the changes accepted and invisible. Track Changes is a feature of MS Word and can be accessed through the review menu of MS Word 2007 and 2010. When Track Changes is activated, all the editing work in the manuscript is visible, including deletions and insertions, and format changes.  You can accept or reject changes by simply right clicking on the highlighted text and choosing the appropriate option. For a more detailed review of the “Track Changes” option in MS Word see here.

Please check the website to check the status of the paper. If the status is still marked editing in progress and the date exceeds the delivery date in the receipt you received by email, please contact us immediately by email. Bioedit will always endeavour to deliver the edited work before the announced deadline. If not, you will be refunded 10% of the editing fee for each day the delivery date exceeds the deadline.

Note: Bioedit will only start editing a paper after payment has been made by credit card or bank transfer. Please make the payment promptly to avoid a delay in the editing process.

All our work comes with the guarantee that any manuscript that has been entirely edited by Bioedit will not be rejected for publication because of poor English. In the unlikely event that this should happen, we will continue to work with you until you are happy with the edited version. If you are still unhappy, we will make a full refund.