First, do not rely on a spell-checker or computer. A spell-checker cannot interpret text, and will only check spelling. Missing words are not spotted.
Gastel and Day (2016) mentions the first English edition of the Bible, the so-called King James version, printed in 1631. The seventh commandment appeared as: “Thou shalt commit adultery”. There may
165 25. What Happens to the Manuscript After Acceptance?
be some speculation about the popularity of this edition, but one thing is certain: a computer spell-checker would never have spotted this error.
Second, do not do the proofreading by yourself. Ask someone to help. This is because you are too familiar with the text by this stage, and therefore unlikely to spot missing letters, mix-ups and similar errors.
You may notice missing words or sections but otherwise your ability to spot errors will be low. Asking someone else will greatly reduce such errors being overlooked.
One of you should take the original (the manuscript), and read it aloud. The other person should carefully follow the proofs to see if it matches the original. Do this twice — it may seem superfluous, but remember: any mistake that slipped your attention will remain there forever. Do not underestimate the “annoyance potential” of such small errors; help yourself to ensure a less stressful life.
Take special care with numbers, tables, and figures, symbols, equations, unusual expressions, scientific names. Remember, the people working on your manuscript at this stage are not scientists; they are
“keyboard operators”. They will not be able to spot if a decimal point error slipped through, if a column content is transposed, a scientific name is misspelled, etc. You are the only one who can spot such mistakes. And do not trust the computer — surprising errors can occur.
On finding an error, the traditional method used to be to mark its position in the text, and indicate the correction in the margin. For this, standard proofreading marks were used by people in the publishing and printing industry worldwide. Electronic proofreading systems seem to be increasingly used, in which the author must use the comments and correction tools in Adobe Acrobat. In some cases, you will have to return the corrected pdf file; for other journals, you will have to login into the proofing system of the journal on the Internet, and make the corrections directly. If your Internet link is not good enough for this, you can always download the pdf file, and work on that, then send the corrected file back by e-mail.
You should also check the placing, sequence and quality of tables and figures. Are the figure sizes large enough? They are rarely too big — but frequently too small, because the technical editor, from a desire to accommodate more papers on the limited number of pages available to the journal, will try to reduce size a little too much. Also,
check the orientation of the figures, their sharpness and readability. If you are dissatisfied with them, you can request replacement or a size change, but indicate the reason. In that case, request the second proofs, too. For text changes, this is not necessary. Reply to any queries put to you, if there are any. These will usually concern word choices, sometimes missing data, numbers, etc. If there are any, correct them carefully.
At this stage, making changes can be very costly, because the whole issue is now typeset. As a rule, there cannot be any changes. If there is a missing paragraph that was omitted by the printer, they will have to correct it — this is not your error and, thus, you will not be expected to meet the costs. However, if you omitted a paragraph from the final manuscript, and want to include that in the printed paper, this can be very expensive. This cost will routinely be charged to the authors.
Additionally, check and update the reference list, especially the references that were, at the time of submission, “in press”. Add the final data if available; these usually comprise simply the year of publication, the volume and page numbers.
If not done earlier, you must now sign the copyright transfer form.
If you have to pay any charges, this usually happens at this stage, too.
26. What to Do with a Published Paper?
Once you have published a paper, you can sit back and wait for recognition and world fame to arrive. It may be a long wait. Until that happens, there are a few things that are necessary or advisable to do.
First, remember to provide the necessary depository copies, or to deposit the electronic file in the appropriate digital repository. Sending copies of your output to your funding organisations is often not just a courtesy, but an obligation, and is specified in the research contract.
Do not neglect this. If more physical copies are needed than you have, print and mail them. Foundations, especially private foundations, often collect the outputs that emerge from projects done with their support.
This may be an important way of documenting the usefulness of their existence.
Of course, if you are the corresponding author, you should make sure that all your co-authors have copies of the published paper. Your institutional library may also have an archive containing the outputs from your unit or department. Give (or send) a copy to the librarian. It is polite (and, therefore, a good idea), to give copies to people who appear in the paper by name, either as sources of personal communication, or who you acknowledged for helping you along the way to publication.
Likewise, it is a friendly gesture to send a copy to cited authors — but use this option with restraint: maybe to authors of primary papers you cited, but not to those of books or reviews.
You can also use the published paper as a networking tool, giving copies to your colleagues, group leaders, friends, parents, rivals, supervisors, etc. Think about other people or organisations who can benefit from the information you published. These might be non-governmental organisations, museums, collections, schools, field
© Gábor L. Lövei, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0235.26
stations and the like. They share one thing in common: difficulties in obtaining such primary scientific literature.