This site is still under construction. Check back often to see updates. If you have any suggestions, use the contact form.

Introduction

Welcome to AcademicProof.

I have been proofreading academic papers written by non-native English speakers in the fields of engineering, science, and medicine since 2006. To help you get published, this site describes the most common mistakes that I have come across and suggests appropriate corrections.

This site will not teach you English. It will not teach you how to write a paper. Instead, it will show you where you are most likely to make mistakes.

I assume that you are already familiar with the basics of writing an academic paper. If you have never written a paper, see the Resources page.

I have attempted to use very simple English throughout the site to make it easy to understand for non-native English speakers. If you find any text that is confusing, contact me and I will try to clarify the text. Such changes will improve the site for all readers.

I hope that you find the information here useful. Good luck with your paper.

Content

The site content is organized as follows.

  • The General Advice section provides information about journals, proofreading, consistency, and clarity.

  • The General Topics section lists common patterns and mistakes.

  • The Manuscript section lists common patterns and mistakes for each section of a manuscript.

  • The Reviewer Comments section provides suggestions for responses to reviewer comments.

Examples

All examples on this site are based on content in actual papers. I have changed the details to protect the identity of the original authors.

The following icons are used for examples.

example an example

improvement an improved version of an example indicated by example

incorrect an example that includes one or more mistakes

correct a corrected version of an example indicated by incorrect

comment a comment about an example

Feedback

I welcome any feedback regarding this site. If you have found a mistake or have a request for additional content, fill out the contact form. Note that I work on this site in my free time; be patient with corrections and additions.

Please understand

This is the only part of the site where I use "please". The original text had hundreds of "please see", "please avoid", "please consider", "please remove", etc. I found this distracting so I have decided to not use "please" with every command. Please understand that I do mean "please" whenever you see a command.