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Selected Examples of My Editing Since 2011 (Done in MSWord, Saved As PDFs)
In all the following Examples, the “Unedited Word count” excludes names, affiliations, and bios of authors, as well as acknowledgments and references. Prospective clients can benefit from the information and/or the explanations offered in my editorial notes in addition to the actual revisions. * **
Unedited Word Count: 4660; Total Editing Time: 7 hrs 10 min
Ex.2: Literature Review—Chapter 2 [from a Doctoral Thesis on information-/image-/data-retrieval systems]
Unedited Word Count: 8034; Total Editing Time: 27 hrs 57 min
Ex. 3: A Structural Approach to Ethical Reasoning: The Integration of Moral Philosophy
Unedited Word Count: 9597; Total Editing Time: 30 hrs 25 min
Ex. 4: Rheological properties of sand-foam mixtures used in EPB tunneling
Unedited Word Count: 13,991; Total Editing Time: 22 hrs 14 min
Unedited Word Count: 2781; Total Editing Time: 9 hrs 16 min
Ex. 6: A Design and Experiment on an Intelligent Fuzzy Monitoring System for Corn Planters
Unedited Word Count: 3875; Total Editing Time: 10 hrs
Ex. 7: Thermal properties of biomass tar at rapid heating rates
Unedited Word Count: 3468; Total Editing Time: 14 hrs 31 min
Ex. 8: Crop Water Stress Index for Off-Season Greenhouse Green Peppers in Liaoning, China
Unedited Word Count: 3468; Total Editing Time: 7 hrs 30 min
Unedited Word Count: 4819; Total Editing Time: 19 hrs 28 min
Ex.10: Identification of damaged corn seeds using an air-coupled ultrasonic technique
Unedited Word Count: 3792; Total Editing Time: 11 hrs 20 min
Unedited Word Count: 4297; Total Editing Time: 11 hrs 20 min
Ex.12: Research progress in technological innovation and integration of agricultural engineering
Unedited Word Count: 3859; Total Editing Time: 15 hrs 15 min
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Selected Examples of My Editing Done in Taiwan (Pre-2011)
Abstracts
Why am I posting only abstracts for several research reports (i.e., Exx. 13-18)? The answer is simple: The main texts of these papers are in Chinese (with only one exception). I’m not qualified to edit Chinese—even at the kindergarten level!
Most, if not all, of these examples have detailed editorial annotations that should be instructive to non-native speakers of English, especially those whose writing exhibits similar problems. Please notice that, in each of the following abstract examples, the original UNEDITED version appears (or at least begins) in the left column on the page; the EDITED version, in the right column:
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Ex. 13: The resonant cognition of images of sound and colors as exemplified by Chinese aerophone instruments
Total editing (and annotation) time: 1 hr 10 min; unedited word count: 171 (When editing this abstract, my expertise in music enabled me to suggest that the author’s compound word “Color-Music” should be revised to “Klangfärbenmelodie.”)
Ex. 14: The Semiotic Structure and Semantic Composition of Frozen English Similes
Total editing time: 54 min; unedited word count: 191 (This abstract was written by a professor of English who is not a native speaker. For some reason, that author ignored my corrections; therefore, the published article contains several errors.)
Total editing time: 1 hr 10 min; unedited word count: 341 [This abstract is an example of very poorly written English. My corrections and annotations should be quite instructive. I do not know the name(s) or the affiliation(s) of the author(s).]
Ex. 16: Mozart’s style dialogué, as exemplified in the Concerto for Flute, Harp and Orchestra, K. 299
Total editing time: 47 min; unedited word count: 132 (Two instructive annotations, one of which calls attention to a frequently occurring redundancy)
Total editing time: 50 min; unedited word count:241(Four instructive annotations)
Ex. 18: When One is Not Enough: Translation Rating and the Assessment of Partial Word Knowledge
Total editing time: 44 min; unedited word count: 204 (Two instructive annotations, the first of which calls attention to a frequently occurring incorrect usage of the pronoun “we”)
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Research Reports
All of the following examples are PDFs compiled from scanned images; therefore, extra time may be required for these large files to load. These images were scanned from the actual paper-and-ink printouts of the various manuscripts, page-by-page. On those printouts, I used a red pencil to mark all corrections and a regular lead pencil to write explanatory notes (mostly in the margins). In all these examples, the main texts are--by necessity--double-line-spaced. However, when I edit documents directly in Microsoft Word, it is not necessary for the text to be double-spaced. In fact, I no longer request double-spaced formatting in manuscripts.
When you view the following examples, you should pay more attention to the number of words in the unedited manuscript and less attention to the number of pages, due to the double-spaced lines. In the examples below, the Total Word Count for each article--before editing--includes all text except the title page and reference list, as reported by the Word Count function in MSWord. (Names and affiliations of authors have been erased.)
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Total editing time expended: 4 hrs 56 min; total unedited word count: 8,211; unedited word count in the portion actually edited: 1,405
Notes: (1) Unfortunately, I found it necessary to discontinue editing this manuscript near the end of p. 4, due to the fact that correction to that point had consumed much too much time (an average of 74 min per double-spaced page). At that time, my editing queue had several other manuscripts awaiting correction. (2) The principal author was a doctoral student. (3) This manuscript exhibited global problems, including many errors in grammar, syntax, and diction as well as verbosity, redundancy, and ambiguity.
Ex.20: Biotreatment of Phenol-Contaminated Wastewater in a Spiral Bioreactor
Total editing time: 7 hrs 13 min; total unedited word count: 2,822
Note: The second author was a graduate student enrolled in a university in the USA.
Total editing time: 4 hrs 55 min; total unedited word count: 2,310
Afterthought: This manuscript was among the least problematic for me to edit, although there are several red marks on many of the pages.
Ex.22: A System-Dynamics Model of the Financial Crisis in the Taiwanese Elementary-School Education System
Total editing time expended on 20½ pages: 20 hrs 43 min; total unedited word count: 8,253; unedited word count in the portion initially edited: 6,296
Notes: (1) Unfortunately, I had to lay this manuscript aside after spending an average of 1 hr 38 min per page through the first 20½ pages. (My editing queue had several other manuscripts awaiting correction.) However, I was able to continue marking corrections about five weeks later, as mentioned in the “Sticky Notes” in the PDF. (2) The principal author was a doctoral student who had an imminent deadline for submitting the report. (3) This manuscript exhibited global problems, including many errors in grammar, syntax, and diction; redundancies; a citation and reference style not conforming to what was prescribed by the stylesheet of the target journal; many errors in the figures, tables, and captions; and passages which had to be completely rewritten.
Ex.23: Mechanical properties and deformation behavior of cast binary Ti-Cr alloys
Total editing time: 3 hrs 53 min; total unedited word count: 3,233
Afterthought: This manuscript was another that I would categorize as being among the least problematic for me to edit, although there are several red marks on many of the pages.
Total editing time: 15 hrs 20 min; total unedited word count: 4,428
Note: This manuscript exhibited global problems, including many errors in grammar, syntax, and diction; redundancies; a rambling Introduction; a citation and reference style not conforming to the specifications listed in the stylesheet of the target journal; several errors in the figures, tables, and captions; and passages which had to be completely rewritten. In colloquial terms, it was a big mess!
Ex.25: Recognition of Traffic Warning Signs by Younger and Elderly Drivers
Total unedited word count: 6,717; unedited word count in the portion actually edited: 644; total editing time expended: 2 hrs 31 min, an average of 36½ min per double-spaced page, on only 2½ pages
(1) Unfortunately, I had to discontinue editing this manuscript early in the process. As the end of a semester was approaching, the principal author, a doctoral student, had an imminent deadline for submitting the report. However, I urgently needed to rest during semester break. (2) This manuscript exhibited global problems, necessitating the rewriting of several complete sentences. This manuscript was also “a big mess”!
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