Photo by Farshad Rezvanian on Unsplash
One year ago, we launched Remotely Consulting as a company of scientists working for Research Institutes, Universities, and scientists to achieve their publishing and grant funding KPIs. Over the last twelve months, we have worked with over 350 researchers from all over the world assisting in peer review publications, student dissertations, grant applications and other scientific documents. As we reflect on our year-long engagement with researchers, here are FIVE things that we have learnt along the way:
1) We are a Manuscript and Research Editing Services company.
When we launched, we were keen to support researchers to publish faster and write more and better grant applications, but we didn’t know if researchers even wanted our help. And so, we did the science thing and collected evidence to find out if this would be how we serve researchers best. In these last twelve months, we have found that clients keep coming back to us for manuscript, grants, thesis and research document editing services, including English-language scientific research manuscript editing and translation (55+), grant reviewing and editing (70+), research project development and strategic planning, as well as preparation and editing of PhD dissertations.
We have now edited almost two million words across all such documents, and understand how best to work with you, wherever you are in the world. Clients love that we understand them, and have extensive lived experience as accomplished researchers to know what it feels like to manage competing concerns while trying to find time to write complex scientific documents for peer review, for government agencies, for funders, for students, for the public. We are here to help you with these demands. Tell us: how would you like us to assist with your written research today?
2) Researchers trust us with their science.
Researchers can often be hesitant to seek assistance from their colleagues or institutional service provider, and may instead prefer an external provider, like us. Having worked as scientists for many years ourselves, we too know how precious written research can feel to someone. Equally, we know that you have to trust us to assist with your work, to allow us to offer you our combined 40 years’ experience as accomplished researchers to complete your project. To trust us is to allow yourself to give us a try.
Here are some ways researchers engaged us. Some started by sending us small passages of text to work on, loved what we did with it, and then invited us to work on entire projects. Others began by inviting us to work on short articles in order to establish a working relationship, following which we embarked upon more and complex research projects. The majority of our clients started working with us after a recommendation from their colleagues and coworkers, and then returned for multiple projects. When you give us a try, you will find that you trust us with your work because we understand your written science and work hard to refine it. Feel free to message our team with your request now!
3) Researchers keep coming back because they know what to expect from us.
Our clients keep coming back because they know what to expect – fast and high-quality services that accelerates the preparation of their written research across publishing and grant application KPIs. Because they love our work, less than a quarter of our clients account for sixty percent of our research manuscript editing services, with two thirds of them requesting three or more projects from us.
Our work comes with a guarantee that we do not use Artificial Intelligence (AI) writing tools or Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT for any of our work on your projects. Rather, we draw on our extensive scientific experience and our own extensive publication records as successful, grant-funded researchers to deliver quality services to our clients. Our work comes with a certificate of service that reflects these qualities and we are always happy to hear from clients to find out how we can improve.
We also offer incentives to researchers that recommend us because we are convinced that you will all love working with us to boost your science.
4) Our clients want to know who is doing their work.
Our research clients appreciate knowing who is doing the work for them. When you work with us, you can select the team member you are working with, or we recommend you the most appropriate person for the task. Our manuscript and research editing services to clients are typically carried out by two team members: one to lead service delivery and the other to re-check over the work product. When we serve you, two members are available to offer rapid support for any issues.
For our manuscript editing work, we encourage clients to cite us in the Acknowledgements section of their paper to declare that we have assisted in the preparation of their written research ahead of peer review and publication. This is consistent with the practices and guidelines of the Committee of Publishing Ethics (COPE), within which we operate by. The majority (60%) of publications from our clients cite our contribution within their manuscript, although researchers are entirely free to decide if they should like to mention our contribution.
5) Our team loves fast results.
Working to deliver complex projects, maintaining communications with clients and offering support with a fast, high-quality service requires teamwork. We are privileged to have our team supporting each other to deliver on complex written research projects and offer support to our research clients every step of the way, from video consultation, troubleshooting and client after-sales support. We are continually finding ways to improve our service to clients and to support each other to do so. We complete projects quickly, some within 24 hours.
We are excited for our clients when their manuscripts are accepted for publication. We are thrilled when trainees and students work with us to edit their dissertations and successfully navigate external review and pass their exams. For some researchers, they love our comprehensive services to edit their grant applications and to get to know their research to support manuscript projects, develop research strategies, promote research and public community engagement (through opinion pieces and commentaries), and more.
It’s now been a year and we would like to thank all of our clients for trusting us with their research. If you haven’t worked with us yet, I urge you to give us a try. Let us show you how we can assist you to prepare high quality manuscripts and scientific documents rapidly, to maximise your chances of gaining grant funds, and to give you time back.
Contact our director, Julian Heng, for a quote or a chat here.