What an editor may do to a paper

Does using an editor affect authorship?

No, and the rules say so directly. The ICMJE recommends authorship be based on four criteria, all of which have to be met. The first is substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data. The second is drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content. The third is final approval of the version to be published, and the fourth is agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work.¹

Editing does not reach any of them. The recommendations name the point exactly, stating that writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, and proofreading do not by themselves qualify a person for authorship.¹

That is a floor rather than a ceiling. Where somebody has done more than editing, the four criteria are the test rather than the job title.

Can an editor be listed as an author?

Only where that person independently meets all four criteria, which an editor working on language and mechanics does not.¹ Adding a name that does not meet them is the fault the field calls guest or gift authorship.

The Committee on Publication Ethics frames why this matters. Authorship conveys significant privileges, responsibilities, and legal rights, which is why it is not something to be handed out as thanks.²

The opposite fault has a name too, and it is the more serious one. Where somebody made an authorship-level contribution and is left off the paper, the omission is the problem rather than any discourtesy attached to it.

Neither fault is something an editor can fix or should be asked to. Who is named on a paper is decided by the people doing the research.

Do I have to acknowledge the editor?

Where a contributor falls short of authorship, the ICMJE is explicit that they should be acknowledged.¹ COPE puts the same mechanism in general terms, noting that acknowledgements can be used to denote contributions that do not meet the criteria of authorship.²

Whether that reaches a copyeditor depends on the journal and on what was done. A language edit is often not acknowledged at all, while substantial writing assistance normally is, and some journals require it.

The reliable answer is the journal's own instructions. Where those are silent, acknowledging costs a line and settles the question, and no author has been criticized for an acknowledgment that was not required.

The wording can be short and specific. Naming the person and the level of work done is enough, and it is more useful to a reader than a general thanks.

Is language editing the same as ghostwriting?

No, and the distinction is about origination rather than about degree. A ghostwriter produces text that is presented as somebody else's work. An editor changes text the author produced.

The line becomes real when an editor is asked to write a discussion section, construct an argument, or draft results commentary from a table. That is writing, and if it is not disclosed it creates exactly the problem the authorship rules exist to prevent.

At EditFast the work on a paper is editing. Where a request would cross into writing sections of the paper, we say so and decline rather than doing it quietly.

Authors sometimes want that line drawn for them, and it is a fair thing to ask about at the quoting stage. An editor who will not name the boundary is not a safer choice.

What can an editor change in a results section?

Language, consistency, and presentation. Not the numbers, not the claims, and not the direction of an inference.

Copy editing is defined to include checking mechanical consistency and factual accuracy.³ In a results section that means confirming a figure quoted in the text matches the table, that a percentage and its denominator agree, and that a p-value is reported the same way throughout. Those are internal checks against the paper's own content.

What an editor cannot do is decide whether the analysis supports the sentence. That is the authors' judgment, and accountability for it is written into the fourth criterion they are agreeing to.¹

Where a sentence and a table appear to disagree, the finding comes back as a query naming both. Which one is wrong is not something an editor can determine from the manuscript.

Who is responsible for what the paper claims?

The authors, under a criterion written for exactly this. The fourth ICMJE criterion is agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work, including that questions about the accuracy or integrity of any part are appropriately investigated and resolved.¹

Nothing an editor does transfers any of that. A sentence an editor rephrased is still the authors' claim, which is why a rephrasing that could alter meaning should arrive as a query rather than as a change.

The same logic governs the newer disclosure rules. The ICMJE requires that use of artificial intelligence assisted technology be reported.¹ It also states that humans remain responsible for any submitted material that involved it, which leaves responsibility exactly where the four criteria already put it.¹

What if a co-author disagrees with the edit?

That is settled among the authors, and the third ICMJE criterion assumes it will be: final approval of the version to be published is required of every author.¹ An edit that one author accepts and another rejects is not resolved by the editor.

The practical arrangement is to name one corresponding contact for the edit. An editor receiving conflicting instructions from three authors will produce a file that satisfies none of them and will bill for the time.

Where disagreement is about substance rather than language, it belongs to the authors entirely. An editor can set both versions side by side and say what each one asserts, which is usually enough for the group to decide.

That is a useful service and a limited one. Presenting a choice clearly is editorial work; making it is not.

Can an editor help with the response to reviewers?

With the writing of it, yes. The response letter is a document like any other, and it benefits from being organized, complete, and readable.

What an editor cannot supply is the substance of the reply. Whether a reviewer's objection is answered by new analysis, by a qualification, or by disagreement is a scientific judgment belonging to the authors.

A useful division is that the authors write what they did and why, and the editor checks that every point raised is answered, in order, in language a busy reader can follow. Unanswered points are the commonest fault in these letters and the easiest to catch.

Every document a client sends us is treated in confidence, including manuscripts under review and correspondence with a journal.