ABSTRACT
The ethics of the proofreading of English-as-an-additional-language (EAL) scholars’ academic writing for publication is an under-explored topic. This chapter addresses this topic by examining how various proofreaders intervened and shaped two manuscripts written by a master’s student of biology in China. A review of the relevant literature reveals two potential ethical issues. The first one concerns whether it is ethical for an EAL author to offer authorship to others in exchange for, or as a result of, the latter’s proofreading of the manuscript, especially when the manuscript initially failed to meet the writing requirements for international publishing. The second issue concerns whether proofreading impedes or facilitates writer development. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative analyses of our data (i.e., manuscript drafts, interventions and revisions, and a semi-structured interview), this chapter seeks to explore these ethical issues from the focal participant’s perspective. In light of our findings, the chapter argues that ethical guidelines concerning proofreading need to be reconceptualised to take into account structural issues (e.g., disciplinary structure, institutional culture, and the ecology of local research systems) in the context of English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP) and foreground individual autonomy and power in scholarly publishing practice.
