ICPC ’14 English Language Paper Proofreading Service

The organizers of ICPC (International Conference on Program Comprehension) announce a first-of-its-kind written English language proofreading service for submissions to the Research Track!

Deadline: Monday, January 20, 2014, 23:59 Pacific Standard Time

The goal of our service is to help non-native English speakers/writers improve their technical writing skills, enabling paper authors to more effectively communicate their paper’s message and content to the program committee. Our talented and dedicated pool of native English-speaking and writing proofreaders (who, by day, conduct research in the ICPC field) will fix lexical, grammatical, and English-language semantic aspects of the writing. Common correctable problems include misspellings, grammar errors, poor word choices (e.g. using the wrong synonym), awkward phrasing, missing articles, run-on sentences, inappropriate paragraph and section breaks, and overuse of passive voice.

Directions:

1. Only papers intended for ICPC’s Research Track are eligible for proofreading services.
2. You must make two submissions to EasyChair: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icpc2014
   • First, submit your paper’s abstract to the _Research Track_ on January 20, 2014, 23:59 PST.
   • Second, submit your full paper in source format (Microsoft Word or Latex with all files necessary to make it “compile”) to the _Proofreading Track_ on January 20, 2014, 23:59 PST. If you are submitting more than one file, please put them together into a single Zip archive first.
   • Yes, your paper *must be complete* by the time abstracts are due in order to be eligible to be proofread.
3. Once submitted, a proofreader will begin to work on your paper. He or she will return a rewritten paper (still in its original format), along with a diff of what they did to it (i.e., Track Changes for Word, and a Diff for Latex files). Proofreaders may also return a set of comments noting any broader non-content-related issues that are too difficult to fix without a major rewrite.
4. Proofreaders will finish Thursday morning, January 23, 2014 (reviewer’s time zone), giving you at least one full day to incorporate the changes into your final ICPC Research Track paper submission (deadline Friday, January 24, 2014, 23:59 PST).
5. *Do not forget* to submit a Research Abstract to the ICPC Research Track on January 20, 2014, 23:59 PST. Your submission to the Proofreading Track will not count as a Research Track submission.

1. This proofreading service is not intended to alter or “fix” the research content of your paper. Proofreaders will not improve your paper’s logical argument, alter its rhetorical style, nor intentionally change its message in any way.
2. Your paper must be content-complete when submitted to the proofreading service.
3. Your paper must be better than first draft quality. This means you have to have finished writing the paper and proofread it yourself at least once before turning it in.
4. Your paper must also have been read by someone other than yourself. This person must have given you feedback that you incorporated into the paper prior to submission.
5. You only get one proofreading pass.
6. The proofreader may reject the assignment if the writing quality of the submitted paper is far too poor to fix, the paper is way off-topic, or the paper is incomplete. If this occurs, the Proofreading Track Chair will take the assignment and attempt to work with the paper. If Chair does not believe the paper is ready and/or appropriate to be proofread, he will contact the authors, discuss his findings, and try to find a way to help them move forward.
7. If you receive help from a proofreader and like the results, you are encouraged to thank the Proofreading Service in your paper’s Acknowledgments section.
8. This year’s proofreading staff includes some ICPC PC members. If your paper is proofread by a PC member, that PC member must declare a conflict and may not review your paper for acceptance into ICPC 2014. When assigning a proofreader to your paper, we will do our best to minimize topic-area conflicts as much as possible to ensure the most appropriate reviewers for your research are able to review the paper.