At this stage of your manuscript, you have worked out the structure and content of your manuscript, and you now need to tidy up the text.
At the minimum, do the following:
- Layout – do you use the same format through the manuscript for your headings, paragraph separators (space or an indent), and font type and size?
- Have you explained all abbreviations the first time you use them? (remove the abbreviations that you only use 1-2 times!)
- Check again that the research objectives fit with the results you present and the study conclusions
- Check the journal’s Guidelines for Authors – you will find these on the journal website. Among other things, these guidelines will tell you the maximum number of words in your abstract and main text, the reference style to use, and the format for tables and figures.
- Set the language and do a spell check