English editing & proofreading services | editEon

For over 100 years, the consumption of cranberry products has been anecdotally associated with prevention of urinary tract infections (UTIs). Scientists have long questioned if this is myth or scientific fact.

New cases of diabetes continue to increase as does the health burden for those with diabetes. Law is a critical tool for health improvement, yet assessments reported in a new study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine indicate that federal, state, and local laws give only partial support to guidelines and evidence-based interventions relevant to diabetes prevention and control. The authors explore the role that law can play in serving as an effective health tool.

In 2010, diabetes was the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States. Nearly 26 million people in America have the disease and about a quarter of them don’t even know it. If current trends continue, 30 percent of the US population may experience diabetes by 2050. Risk factors for type 2 diabetes include limited access to nutritious food, limited opportunity for physical activity, socioeconomic conditions, and genetic disposition. While many well-founded guidelines and recommendations for diabetes intervention exist, the incidence and prevalence of diabetes continues to escalate. This is attributable, in part, to low adoption of evidence-based interventions for diabetes prevention and control. Laws, including statutes, ordinances, and government agency rules and regulations can support interventions to prevent and control disease in various ways. Laws can help shape environments to reduce exposure to some type 2 diabetes risk factors and encourage preventive behaviors, and laws can authorize or require provision of prevention-oriented information designed to change the behaviors and cultural norms that affect risk.

The team evaluated existing guidelines, recommendations, and standards from 12 public health and medical organizations. They uncovered 47 guidelines in total: 20 for diabetes control and 27 for type 2 diabetes risk reduction and prevention. The team then determined the extent to which federal and state laws supported these guidelines. Investigators analyzed the laws further to determine whether they contained provisions that require, incentivize, or encourage healthcare providers, insurers, employers, schools, child care centers, restaurants, government agencies, and others, to take action consistent with a given guideline.Investigators concluded that:

Implementation of guidelines for evidence-based interventions for diabetes prevention and control is incomplete

Many opportunities exist for exploring uses of law to improve adoption

The team suggested six specific actions and considerations to improve the use of law as a way to prevent and control diabetes:

Adopted laws should meet certain criteria, including demonstrated effectiveness, feasibility of practical implementation, and respect for individual liberties.

Existing laws, including laws related to land use and building design, transportation systems, education, food production, and advertising, should be evaluated for their impact on diabetes risk reduction, prevention, and control.

Laws that have been proposed but not yet adopted also can be assessed for their potential to improve diabetes prevention and control.

Laws can be explored that address risk factors common to diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, and that address the interaction between diabetes and certain infectious diseases.

Organizations that establish guidelines for diabetes prevention and control should explore developing guidelines specifically for relevant law-based interventions.

As the Affordable Care Act expands insurance for people with diabetes or at risk of diabetes, the impact of such guidelines should be assessed and used to shape supportive policies, as appropriate.

There is a list of the most common reasons cited by reviewers for an application’s lack of success:

Lack of significance to the scientific issue being addressed.

Lack of original or new ideas.

Proposal of an unrealistically large amount of work (i.e., an overambitious research plan).

Scientific rationale not valid.

Project too diffuse or superficial or lacks focus.

Proposed project a fishing expedition lacking solid scientific basis (i.e., no basic scientific question being addressed).

Studies based on a shaky hypothesis or on shaky data, or alternative hypotheses not considered.

Proposed experiments simply descriptive and do not test a specific hypothesis.

The proposal is technology driven rather than hypothesis driven (i.e., a method in search of a problem).

Rationale for experiments not provided (why important, or how relevant to the hypothesis).

Direction or sense of priority not clearly defined, i.e., the experiments do not follow from one another, and lack a clear starting or finishing point.

Lack of alternative methodological approaches in case the primary approach does not work out.

Insufficient methodological detail to convince reviewers the investigator knows what he or she is doing (no recognition of potential problems and pitfalls).

Most experiments depend on success of an initial proposed experiment (so all remaining experiments may be worthless if the first is not successful).

The proposed model system is not appropriate to address the proposed questions (i.e., proposing to study T-cell gene expression in a B-cell line).

The proposed experiments do not include all relevant controls.

It is beneficial to decide on a target journal during the very early stages of writing an article, rather than first preparing an article and then considering where to send it. Analyze potential journals and choose one. Write your article with your target journal in mind. This is useful because different journals have different perceptions of science as well as differing opinions on how articles ought to be written. By writing directly for your target journal, you will ensure the right type of approach and speed up your writing process. If you wish to be even wiser, you may also choose a secondary target journal for the case that your primary option fails.

The number of scientific journals is vast and is growing steadily, which means that there are plenty of publishing opportunities. The fundamental reason behind the growing number of journals is the increasing number of researchers globally. Quite often you can hear researchers complaining that there are no scientific journals for their specific narrow research field. Most often this is not true. Journals exist for wide and varying topical fields. Should you find it difficult to find a suitable one, try considering potential applications for your results. Consequently, think who might benefit of your results and how. It may also be possible to publish your results in an applied journal instead of what you initially thought as your own field.

Noteworthy is that different publication mediums are valued differently within the scientific community. Also, universities are ranked based on the number and level of publications. Journal articles are commonly recognized above conference papers, even if many of the conference publications use peer review practices. It is recommended that a researcher, even at early stages, should start the learning process of writing for journals. Once experience is gained, one should raise his ambition level step-by-step and aim towards publishing in increasingly better journals. The impact factor is one way to measure the level of journals. Note that this is not an absolute measure and there are differences among different fields of science. A researcher should see conferences as an additional medium for networking and as an avenue to obtain more face-to-face feedback. However, the ultimate goal should be eventually publishing the work in a journal. A researcher should consider his ambition level and assess the level of his own research when choosing the publication medium.

Critical writing is not just about acquiring data, memorizing facts, or reiterating what someone else thinks, but is a learned skill that involves active participation by the individual to understand the topic well enough to write a balanced and well communicated paper.

In order to write a critical analysis paper, you should learn two things: (1) how to think critically and (2) how to read critically. Critical thinking is defined as the “intellectually disciplined process of actively analyzing and evaluating information gathered from experience, observation, or communication as a guide to belief and action”. This means gathering available information regarding a topic, interpreting the relevancy of the sources, and processing the information into an intelligent way of thinking about it. The ability to think critically is a skill that is required for everyone, because problem solving is needed throughout life. Essays and papers that you will write during your academic career will require you to perform the task of first thinking critically about a specific topic before you begin to write about it. For example, under the heading of biomedical research there are several subtopics that you can explore. You may write about a family member or friend who has been helped because of a particular scientific discovery, or the laws and regulations regarding animal research or recent medical advances that seem intriguing to you. As you start your research, another entirely different idea may present itself to you.

critical writing depends on critical reading.” In other words, there is a certain way to process information you read in order to complete an essay or paper. When you begin to research a particular topic, you should skim through sources the first time around to get a feeling for the overall content. Then go back and reread the article, several times, to pick out details relevant to your subject matter. The key point is not to read for just information, but to look for unique ways of thinking in regard to your topic. Remember, you are not writing a book report. Instead, you are evaluating the information and making sure it accounts for the conclusions it

LEAVE YOURSELF PLENTY OF TIME (for all steps of the writing process, including editing): By making and following a timeline for the paper, you are more likely to have time to finish everything with the proper amount of care and attention. Also, keep in mind that it may be best to lay your paper aside for a day or so before proofreading and editing, as you may be more likely to catch errors or notice structural problems if your writing isn’t so “fresh” in your mind.

GET ACQUAINTED WITH YOUR RESOURCES: You don’t need to memorize every grammar or citation rule that may apply to the genre or discipline in which you’re writing—you can look them up. Take advantage of the resources available to you: dictionaries, thesauruses, handbooks, citation guides, handouts from class, librarians, and writing center consultants.

KNOW YOUR WEAKNESSES: Keep a list of errors you tend to make: it will help you know what to look for when you edit. You can also read the paper once for each error type—if you’re only looking for one thing, you’ll be more likely to notice it.

PRINT A COPY OF YOUR PAPER TO USE WHEN EDITING AND PROOFREADING: It is much harder to catch errors on a screen than on paper.

READ YOUR PAPER OUT LOUD: Often, when we read silently, our eyes skip over small errors, awkward or run-on sentences, and typos. By reading out loud, you force yourself to notice everything from spelling and word choice to the structure of sentences. You can also have someone read your paper aloud and tell you where they are confused.

READ YOUR PAPER BACKWARDS: Another way to force yourself to notice small details is to take things out of context. Try reading your paper backwards, sentence by sentence or paragraph by paragraph, so that you are focusing on the text, not the ideas. This technique is especially helpful for catching sentence fragments.

CHECK THE PUNCTUATION: Look over the paper on a sentence-by-sentence level to see if your punctuation is correct. Are commas in the right places? Are there any run-on sentences? If you aren’t sure about how to use certain kinds of punctuation, look in a manual, explore other quick tips, and/or ask a writing consultant for help.

Some differences have been observed in the writing in English of Finnish and native-speaker writers. One difference has been noted in the use of phrases which help guide the reader through the article and make the text easier to follow. The possibly more frequent use of such phrases in English texts reflects what is referred to as “writer-responsible orientation”, where the writer leads the reader explicitly through the text, as opposed to a “reader-responsible orientation”, where the writer relies on the reader’s ability to make sense of the message. Anglo-American readers tend to expect that writers take responsibility for making their message clear to readers, guiding them to notice what the writer deems to be important and convincing the readers to accept the writer’s claims. These phrases may take the form, for example, of

previews of what is to follow later in a text,

explanations of what topics the text will not cover,

summaries of significant topics that have already been discussed,

signals of the writer’s commitment or caution towards a claim