A few years ago I was asked to join the editorial board of a certain journal which often publishes papers in areas related to my own work. I accepted because I believe it is my academic obligation to help journals and other authors. I have often received help from reviewers, when writing for other journals, and now I can try to help others.

My official role is to review submitted articles when these are close to my own area of expertise. I have not been sent too many manuscripts, but the standard of writing is generally too poor, and the editing expectations placed on the reviewer are too much (I already have many other editing tasks for my own research and immediate circle of colleagues).

In every case, the authors writing for the journal have been struggling with English as a second language. The research in itself is usually good enough, but the authors do not appear to have consulted any editors before submitting their articles to the journal. The managing editors of the journal, for their part, appear to be keen to accept submissions, if at all possible, as they do not receive as many as they would like.

As a result, I have had to provide detailed editing advice while also reviewing the overall acceptability of each paper. Usually I can accept the paper with the condition that revisions are made. When the revised paper is sent to me again, I find that the authors have still not consulted any editors, and that the paper is being resubmitted as simply a second draft following a first edit. The authors do not seem to realise how much work is required to seriously edit the structure, content and details of a research paper. Or they do realise, and are:

(i) not willing or able to pay for editing help, and

(ii) not willing or able to make the effort to develop their own network of colleagues who can help read the paper for them, as volunteers, before it is submitted to the journal.

Now I want to set limits on what I can offer as a volunteer academic reviewer for this journal.

The authors should either (i) employ professional editors, for at least two drafts, before submitting, or (ii) look for colleagues and volunteers who can help them improve drafts, to reduce editing costs, and to get better responses from reviewers. For authors who cannot compose a near-final draft independently, the following sequence of writing and rewriting should be considered:

1) Prepare first draft.

2) Ask a friend or close colleague to read this voluntarily, to check for major or obvious problems in structure and content. The first reader does not need to be someone with first-language abilities. It is more important that he or she is able to understand and make substantive comments on the research being reported.

3) Prepare second draft.

4) Ask a professional editor to check the second draft, and revise accordingly.

5) Ask the same or similar editor to check the revised draft, then make any further adjustments needed; the third draft is now ready.

6) Submit third draft to the target journal.

7) If the journal reviewers and managing editor accept the paper but request further revisions, make these revisions yourself, initially. If you have coauthors, discuss the reviewers' suggestions with them. Authors should accept or reject the reviewers' suggestions according to their own judgement: as authors they must take responsibility for whatever is published. Reviewers can only make informed suggestions, they cannot be responsible for the actual content. This is now the fourth draft.

8) If possible, ask a friend, colleague or professional editor to check the fourth draft, and then resubmit to the journal.

PJM - First draft: 6th December 2008 (Revised 3rd December 2011). See our member group for Volunteers