Help and Support

Frequently Asked Questions

If your question is not answered here, then please let us know.

General

Are you open on public holidays?

The Bioedit office is open 7 days a week, 365 days a year. There are many different public holidays around the world, so we are open for all of them! 

Please note, however, that we do not return edited manuscripts on Sundays, and during busy holiday periods, deadlines may be subject to change. In the event of this, you will be informed of this in advance.

Can I get a discount?

We offer a 20% discount on all editing jobs involving documents longer than 6000 words. We will also consider bespoke discounts for very long documents, books, or theses depending on their length and the extent of the work required.

In addition, we also offer a discount scheme for regular clients. You will be issued a discount token every time we finish a job for you. This is the number that appears under Loyalty Discounts on the job page when the work is completed. Each token provides a 10% discount on the cost of editing the next manuscript. Additionally, you can transfer the discount codes to your colleagues to enable them to use Bioedit at a discounted rate.

Only one discount code may be used per job request. All discounts are applied at Bioedit's discretion.

Can I make a deposit? I have funds / expenses that I wish to use for editing services in future.

No problem. We understand that many researchers wish to allocate part of their budget to editing services. We can accept a payment from you, issue an invoice per your requirements, and then allow you to redeem future editing requests against this deposit.

Can you provide me with an invoice?

When we send you a quote, an invoice is made available to download via your Bioedit account, which includes the details of your service(s) and the billing details you provided. 

If you need any changes made to this invoice, then please contact us and we can amend your invoice with the details you specify.

How can I make payment?

We offer payment by all major credit cards through our secure checkout providers WorldPay. Alternatively, we can accept payment from your institute by bank transfer pending your acceptance of the quote we send to you.

Users in China can pay by Alipay, UnionPay, or WeChatPay. Users in Japan also have option to pay by KAKENHI via our partner company SD Biosystem.

Payments can be made in USD, JPY, EUR or CNY.

I thought Bioedit was a DNA sequence alignment editor?

Bioedit is the registered trademark of the English proofreading company Bioedit Ltd [EC Trademark 003348745, US Trademark 077724587]. We have no association with the Bioedit sequence alignment editor.

I'd like to pay by bank transfer through my institute / university / company. Is this possible?

Yes! We work with many authors who make payment through their respective departments. When we send you a quote, we will ask you to confirm the quote. By selecting BACS Bank Transfer at the checkout, you indicate to us that you agree to pay the fee, and this notifies us that we can begin the work.

Payments must made within 30 days, unless agreed with us in advance. Bank transfer details are included in your invoice.

Issues & Complaints

After editing, I submitted my manuscript to the journal but the reviewers commented on the poor English. Why?

There are a number of reasons this may happen. First, it is important that when you receive an edited manuscript from us, you must check for any comments by the editors seeking further clarification, asking questions, or pointing out missing information/unclear sentences. These should be addressed before the work is submitted for publication.

Any amendments you make to an edited manuscript must be checked by us before you submit the paper to the journal, or else this risks introducing new mistakes to the text, which may prompt negative comments during peer review.

It is also possible that your paper's reviewer(s) is not a native English speaker, and is thus possibly not qualified to critique the language in your manuscript. If you are concerned about comments you have received about language, please send them to us and we can help to resolve the situation.

I'm not satisfied with my edited work, what can you do?

Editing and writing are, to some extent, subjective and no two editors will do the same job on a manuscript. At the same time, some authors prefer their manuscripts to be extensively edited, whereas others prefer only very minimal changes.

Because of this, we understand that everybody will be 100% happy with their edited work every time. If you have any problems or concerns once you have checked your edited manuscript, then please contact us. We pride ourselves on developing long-term and successful relationships with the authors who come to us, and we will do whatever we reasonably can to ensure that you are happy with the service we provide.

Today is the deadline for my work, when will I receive it?

We aim to return edited papers by the end of our UK office hours (5pm GMT/BST). When your edited paper is finished, it will be made available to download via your Bioedit account, and you should receive a notification email from our website informing you of this.

Please note that your deadline is provisional until you accept the quote/make payment via our checkout. Owing to time zone differences, if you confirm a quote we send to you the following day after you submitted a manuscript, then the deadline is adjusted accordingly.

New Website Questions

Can I use my old loyalty discount code?

Yes! If you have discount code then please enter this code when submitting your new editing request. If you do not have the code, then please contact us and we will provide you with a replacement code.

I cannot login, why?

As part of the move to our new website, we are asking all returning users to please reset their password the first time they log-in using the Forgotten Password feature. When you enter your email address, you should receive an email with a link to set a new password. If you do not receive this email, please first check your spam or junk email folders, and then contact us if you are still having difficulties. 

Where are my old editing requests?

We keep a record of all your previous editing requests in your Bioedit account. Since moving to our new website, your editing request will have a new job ID number to comply with our new system. If you need to access previously edited manuscripts but cannot download the files, then please contact us with the Job ID number. However, please note that for security and data purposes, we do not keep edited files longer than 2 years. 

Our services

Can you edit / format my references?

Regrettably, this is not a service we provide. As such, we do not include reference lists in the word count we charge for when we send you a quote.

Can you edit in British or American English style for me?

Yes! We check journal formatting guidelines and ensure that your paper is written using the correct spelling forms and styles requested. If you would like us to check or change your text for a particular style, then please simply mention this in the Notes box when uploading your manuscript.

Our editors and proofreaders have a great deal of experience editing manuscripts destined for different journals all around the world, and are well acquainted with the nuances of different English styles that journals commonly request.  

How are editors selected?

All editors selected to work with Bioedit 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/reviewer of a peer-reviewed journal in the life or medical sciences

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, and thereafter we check every manuscript to maintain our high standards. All editors and employees of Bioedit are bound by our confidentiality agreement.

I have a cover letter / response letter / rebuttal to the reviewers... can you help me with this?

Of course. Our team is familiar with the rigors and requirements of the publication process, and regularly edit correspondence on the behalf of authors to ensure that their message to the journal editor and reviewers is clear, polite, professional and persuasive.

These services are charged for on a per word basis together with your manuscript, or we can include your cover letter for free with Premium editing.

What about tables and figures?

Bioedit will edit the English of all files containing tables, figures, and any accompanying material, so long as it is accessible to word processing under MS Word (all versions). However, if you require the tables and figures be checked for consistency and accuracy, particularly with respect their correct citation within the text, you must use our Premium service.

We cannot edit files in PDF, TIFF, GIF, or JPG format, but we can edit PowerPoint and MS Excel files. However, please upload all figures and tables even if they are not in editable format as having access to the data helps us to better understand and edit the text.

What research subjects/areas do you edit work in?

Bioedit is dedicated exclusively to researchers working in the medical, biological, and life sciences. We are happy to receive work in any subject these areas encompass, including (but not limited to):

Agricultural Science, Anatomy, Animal Science, Biochemistry, Biochemical Techniques, Bioengineering & Biophysics, Bioinformatics, Biomaterials & Regenerative Medicine, Biotechnology, Cancer Research, Cardiology, Cell Biology, Cell Cycle, Chromatin & DNA Replication, Climatology, Conservation, Developmental Biology, Diabetes & Glucose Homeostasis, DNA Repair, Ecology & Forestry, Endocrinology, Entomology, Environmental Research, Enzymology, Epidemiology, Epigenetics, Evolutionary Biology, Exercise Science & Physiology, Forensics, Gastroenterology, Gene Expression, Genetics, Genomic & Computational Biology, Hematology, Hepatology, Histone Modification, Infectious Diseases, Inflammation, Imaging Techniques, Immunogenetics, Immunology, Lipid Biology, Marine Biology, Mental Health, Metabolic Disease, Metabolism, MiRNAs, Mycology, Myelination, Microbiology & Pathogens, Molecular Biology, Nanotechnology, Neurodegeneration, Neuroscience, Nutrition, Obesity, Oncogenes, Oncology, Ophthalmology, Pain, Parasitology, Pharmacology, Plant Science, Population Genetics, Protein Biochemistry, Proteomics, Psychiatry & Psychology, Public Health, RNA, Signal Transduction/Cell Signaling, Statistics, Stem Cell Research, Structural Biology, Soil Biology, Virology, Zoology.