> There needs to be a specialist who is dedicated to catching those errors,
I think "needs" might be too strong here. We (the field of CS) get by without it just fine -- the standard practice is to include copy-editing "nits" at the end of one's review. A shepherd, assigned during the final phase, does a final pass on the paper before approving it.
Yup. Typos slip through. There are papers with poor English.
Oh well. For the most part, it works out pretty well.
(And as a reviewer, I have little objection to also noting writing fixes while I'm reading your paper. I'm going to spend anywhere from 30 minutes to 5 hours reading the thing -- the writing fixes are a small additional cost. If you've done a decent job on the writing in the first place. If it's totally botched, I'll reject your paper and tell you to fix it before submitting it again. :-)
Now, would I prefer that the authors of submitted papers had to pay $50 for someone to do a copy-editing pass before I reviewed it? Heck yes. But perhaps we'll get DNNs to fix this for us one of these days. :)
That's a fair point. One thing I'm getting from this discussion is that it's difficult to generalize when it comes to academic publishing, because norms vary substantially between fields. I've seen the copy editing "nits" you mention at the end of reviewers' letters in my field (history) but I suspect that historians would rebel if the copy editor's job was entirely foisted off on us.
Likewise, it's normal for editors in my field to make meta-level suggestions about writing style. I'd wager that history journals place a greater emphasis on prose style than CS journals do, since making an historical argument often depends on telling a compelling narrative. Hence a publishing model that works for a CS journal might not work for humanities journals and vice versa.
Absolutely. And our papers are a fair bit shorter than yours, for the most part. :). 14 pages, 2 column, 10 or 11pt type is the norm for us, with figures and references included.
I think "needs" might be too strong here. We (the field of CS) get by without it just fine -- the standard practice is to include copy-editing "nits" at the end of one's review. A shepherd, assigned during the final phase, does a final pass on the paper before approving it.
Yup. Typos slip through. There are papers with poor English. Oh well. For the most part, it works out pretty well.
(And as a reviewer, I have little objection to also noting writing fixes while I'm reading your paper. I'm going to spend anywhere from 30 minutes to 5 hours reading the thing -- the writing fixes are a small additional cost. If you've done a decent job on the writing in the first place. If it's totally botched, I'll reject your paper and tell you to fix it before submitting it again. :-)
Now, would I prefer that the authors of submitted papers had to pay $50 for someone to do a copy-editing pass before I reviewed it? Heck yes. But perhaps we'll get DNNs to fix this for us one of these days. :)