ABSTRACT
This article describes a useful procedure to polish a scientific document, but the techniques reported here could be used to improve the presentation of any English text. It was hypothesized that a fresh pair of eyes would notice spelling and grammatical errors, awkward sentences, and unclear logic or meaning that the authors, in their exhaustive reworking of the material, had missed. An anxious but methodical search produced Dr. Marcia Craig, proprietor of a small editing enterprise. Marcia is a native English speaker with a solid background in chemistry and biochemistry and experience editing a broad range of subjects. The results show a fast, reliable service at reasonable rates. The findings in this study can be applied by all authors.

INTRODUCTION
The scientific document is not a new species. It has been around since humans first carved their observations of nature into the stone walls of caves, thousands of years ago. Later, other materials were used to satisfy the human need to set the record straight: papyrus, ceramic tablets, scrolls, and paper have at various times been employed to publish theories and data that reflect the human experience. Current examples of scientific documents are theses, articles, and grant proposals. These compositions are now recorded electronically by scientists or students of science, and transferred to paper for convenient perusal by other humans. The humans who read these documents are usually but not always scientists themselves. Since the subject matter of science has become very broad in the 21st century, writers of these documents need to make the information therein comprehensible to scientists from widely different fields. Ideally, scientific documents should be comprehensible to nonscientist humans who may be interested in scientific topics, or may be in a position to support scientific projects. Evolution of the scientific document has been impressive, both in variety of content and in the sophistication with which this content is discussed. However, at birth these documents are often very crude affairs. Writers who have data vital to the progress of the human race are frequently frustrated by limitations of time and language in their efforts to be heard.

It is proposed in this article that the most effective way to achieve comprehension and readability is by engaging a competent, reliable editor to proofread the document and edit it according to accepted English usage.

It is further proposed that the ideal editor will have a scientific background sufficient to assess the logic of the hypotheses and conclusions stated in the text, and to ensure that these ideas are clearly presented. Finally, it is suggested that these services should be procured at reasonable cost to the author(s).

METHODS
Newspaper and magazine articles were scanned, advice from other scientists was requested, and Internet search engines were employed to find information regarding proofreading and editing services for scientific material. With this broad assay much activity in the editorial sample was detected. Preliminary trials led to a plethora of editors of various backgrounds and capabilities, not to mention a wide range of pricing schemes for editorial services. In order to select the ideal editor, further experiments were conducted. Telephone and email queries were sent to the most promising advertisements.

Editors of distinction were happy to edit a few pages of text free of charge, so the authors could see what kind of changes would be made or suggested by the editor. The following elements were analyzed: quality of editing, efficiency of document turnover, cost of service, need of service, and availability of author resources. Finally, collected data was modelled into the current academic situation of the authors to assess its fit with reality, and conclusions were reached with respect to which editing service should be engaged.

RESULTS
Data accumulated, compiled, and modeled by the above procedures led to the discovery of an ideal editor. This editor was Dr. Marcia Craig, situated in Edmonton, Alberta (Table 1). Marcia was able to work in a wide range of scientific subjects at reasonable rates as shown in Table 2.

CONCLUSIONS
The future of the scientific document is unknown. What we do know is that its complexity is growing exponentially in terms of content and in links to other scientific documents. Using the above methods, the voyage from birth to maturity of the scientific document was shortened considerably, freeing the author(s) to pursue other projects and produce more scientific documents.