When you submit articles for publication, you do it so that your work is noticed.
It's public relations without the parties.
We can review your articles before they are submitted so that there is less room for error in editing.
We can't do anything about the reporter that changes your carefully prepared responses to his questions or, worse, makes poor notes (we know: we've been victims of it more times than we can count including some very highly regarded international publications).
So we in our own business tend to conduct interviews in a question and answer format or to accept commissions to write articles presenting our argument.
Some publications will do as they please no matter what you say. We will use one of our own examples:
Some 20 years ago, Nigel Morris-Cotterill was commissioned to write an article for one of the USA's leading political publications. That article is, even today, regularly cited in other periodicals and in academic research.
He submitted it in English. The editors sent it back for proofing in American. He fixed it. When the article appeared, they had re-translated it and, to this day, it annoys him that readers imagine that he speaks or writes in that way.
This shows that we can't guarantee that the same type of journalist won't change your article once we have phrased it. However, we can reduce the risk by providing as close to a turn-key, copy & paste document as possible, providing less opportunity for the publication to feel the need to dig into the article.
Our objective is to help to put your article into both words and a structure that discourage most of those journalists and editors who think their "house style" is an improvement over your very precisely worded document from interfering with your article.
Many editors have their own particular foible. Some are obsessed with the Oxford Comma, some with using a $ sign which, we argue, is confusing because so many articles are read by so many people who might be unclear as to which dollar the article refers to, some insist on removing the possessive apostrophe s and some insist on using trendy made-up words and phrases which are literally nonsense.
We aim to guard against those foibles and to deliver an article that is already so clear that there is no reason for an editor or journalist to change it.
Yet we have to recognise the reality that they probably will.
What we do
We review your content for errors in spelling, vocabulary, grammar, punctuation and structure.
We look for imprecise or confusing language and terminology and repair it, even if what you wrote is in a commonly used style.
What we do not do
We don't fact or reference check. We don't re-write your content (unless you ask us to) and we don't change your meaning. We don't include our own biases or opinions.
You own the intellectual copyright in the finished product so you can assign that to publications that pay you.
NEXT STEP
Complete the Clarity enquiry form and we can help.
