Don’t get caught getting it wrong

Unless you’re writing the most fantastic fantasy, most writing – even science fiction – lives in a world of actual facts. At this point in human history, it’s hard to know them all and even harder to get them all right. Sometimes you just write something and don’t realize you got it wrong. It happens to all of us and can be terribly embarrassing.

The hardest facts to include in your writing are the scientific ones. They’re specialized and technical and can take years of study to fully understand. It’s easy to get little things wrong, such as: is it E. coli or E. Coli, Escherichia coli or escherichia coli? It’s even easier to jumble up what takes notable scientific or technical expertise to understand. Did you describe the concept correctly? Is that the way such a piece of equipment works? Did you just use a word in a way that would let those in the know know you don’t know what you’re talking about?

Having earned a PhD and taught, done research, and published as a scientist for a couple of decades, I can check the facts in your stories and pieces of non-fiction.

In most cases, my rates for fact checking and scientific reading of (non-academic) manuscripts or sections of text are US$0.06/word (0.053 EUR/word).

I’m looking forward to hearing from you.