Scientific writing navigation: jump in and take a few hits

Commentary on Alexander Nevorotin, Research articles in English: what should be considered before submitting a manuscript I read with much interest the article by Nevorotin providing advice to researchers from the states comprising the territories of the former Soviet Union who wish to have their work published in Western-based English language journals. I have served as a professional editor of journals focused on biomedical research for roughly 15 years now, first at Nature magazine and then at its sister journals, Nature Medicine and Nature Biotechnology. For the last eight years, I have served as the Editor of Molecular Therapy, which is the official journal of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy, and is published by Nature Group. During this time, I must admit that few submissions from this region passed over my desk. However, in my experience Nature Group and certainly Molecular Therapy have striven to be receptive to contributions of research articles from these regions and others in Asia, whose economies and research output are increasing rapidly in import. Most editors realize the extra challenges faced by authors whose native language is not English. This issue is not limited to contributions from research labs physically located in the regions noted, but can also affect work submitted by post-docs hailing from these regions, but who now work in the West, particularly if the senior author does not proofread his or her penmanship. In my view, it is crucial that such authors pass their article to a biomedical researcher whose native language is English, but who is not directly involved in the work—or even in the specific subfield being written up. Why? Because a researcher more removed from the project can usually provide a better gage of the accessibility of its write-up for a general audience, assuming that the work is to be submitted to a high impact generalist journal, as opposed to a more subspecialty journal where the readers (and editors) are already likely familiar with much of the background and jargon of the particular field. Indeed, it is this latter point that many authors—both native and non-native speakers of English—fail to appreciate. With the burgeoning volume of research articles, many editors find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer number of manuscripts they must screen. This initial editorial screen aims to determine whether the work merits external review or whether it should be returned to the author for submission elsewhere. This actually can be true both for professional editors at higher impact journals—who are