Features of ESE

15 November 2024

Prices for shortest and longest advertised turnarounds per 250 words decreased from NZ$ 30 and NZ$ 20, respectively, to NZ$ 26 and NZ$ 18.

14 October 2024

Updated the webpage commenting on the use of ChatGPT for writing and editing manuscripts.

9 April 2024

Changed background color on website from deep blue to light gray.

1 January 2024

Prices for shortest and longest advertised turnarounds per 250 words decreased from NZ$ 34 and NZ$ 24, respectively, to NZ$ 30 and NZ$ 20.

18 November 2023

Prices for shortest and longest advertised turnarounds per 250 words increased from NZ$ 26 and NZ$ 18, respectively, to NZ$ 34 and NZ$ 24.

26 July 2023

Prices for shortest and longest advertised turnarounds decreased from NZ$ 44 and NZ$ 28 per 270 words, respectively, to NZ$ 26 and NZ$ 18 per 250 words.

15 July 2023

Removed background image from website.

19 June 2023

Top-level menu link added to webpage with some comments about ChatGPT.

24 April 2023

Price for shortest advertised turnaround per 270 words decreased from NZ$ 36 to NZ$ 28.

10 August 2022

Backup website (www.science-editing.net) is now hosted in Dallas. Main website (www.scienceediting.com) is still hosted in Hong Kong.

25 September 2021

Backup website changed from www.english-science.com to www.science-editing.net (hosted in Missouri). Removed the third website that we had been operating (www.esemirror.com, in Auckland). Our main website is still www.scienceediting.com (hosted in Hong Kong).

8 August 2021

Default domain from which ESE operates changed from english-science.com to scienceediting.com, and so our main website is now at www.scienceediting.com.

5 August 2021

One of our websites (hosted in Sofia, Bulgaria) moved to Hong Kong. This means that our three independent websites are now hosted on servers in China (Hong Kong), USA (Missouri), and New Zealand (Auckland).

16 June 2021

We are now contactable using WeChat (our ID is ScienceEditing).

20 May 2021

We no longer accept payment by check/cheque. This is due to most of the banks in New Zealand phasing out cheques as a domestic payment option within the next few months, and not accepting cheques from other countries within the foreseeable future.

24 March 2020

We are operating as normal during the global COVID-19 pandemic. New Zealand has a relatively small number of confirmed cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection, and although the situation here will undoubtedly deteriorate markedly during the course of the pandemic, the New Zealand government is adopting a strongly proactive approach aimed at slowing the spread of the virus among the population. Each of our editors will be able to carry on working as normal under the government-mandated lockdown conditions operating in New Zealand.

3 October 2019

Legacy website removed (this had been set up in October 2013 due to limitations of old browsers, such as Internet Explorer 7).

1 April 2019

Prices for shortest and longest advertised turnarounds per 270 words increased from NZ$ 39 to NZ$ 44 and from NZ$ 32 to NZ$ 36, respectively.

10 January to 4 February 2018

No editing performed for 3.5 weeks. All existing clients informed about this on 5 November 2017.

24 June 2017

One of our websites (hosted in Hong Kong) moved to Sofia (Bulgaria). This means that our three independent websites are now hosted on servers in USA (Missouri), Europe (Sofia), and New Zealand (Auckland).

18 May 2017

Prices for shortest and longest advertised turnarounds per 270 words decreased from NZ$ 44 to NZ$ 39 and from NZ$ 36 to NZ$ 32, respectively.

1 February 2017

Price for the longest advertised turnaround per 270 words decreased from NZ$ 39 to NZ$ 36 due to increased editor availability.

12 January to 2 February 2017

No editing performed for 3 weeks. All existing clients informed about this on 14 November 2016.

21 November 2016

Price for the longest advertised turnaround per 270 words increased from NZ$ 36 to NZ$ 39 due to reduced editor availability during the Christmas and New Year vacation period.

6 September 2016

Prices for shortest and longest advertised turnarounds per 270 words increased from NZ$ 39 to NZ$ 44 and from NZ$ 32 to NZ$ 36, respectively.

17 July 2016

The procedure for using our secure online payment system for credit card transactions was simplified, so that it now involves only three webpages (rather than five). The actual transactions are still processed in the same way by the same company (Payment Express), and so they utilize the same security measures.

21 December 2015 to 1 February 2016

No editing performed for 6 weeks. All existing clients informed about this on 10 October 2015.

30 October 2015

Price for longest advertised turnaround per 270 words increased from NZ$ 29 to NZ$ 32.

3 July 2015

Prices for shortest and longest advertised turnarounds per 270 words increased from NZ$ 35 to NZ$ 39 and from NZ$ 26 to NZ$ 29, respectively.

10 June 2015

Prices for shortest and longest advertised turnarounds per 270 words increased from NZ$ 33 to NZ$ 35 and from NZ$ 24 to NZ$ 26, respectively.

14 January to 4 February 2015

No editing performed for 3 weeks, which was the first time that ESE had been closed for longer than a few days since the company was formed in 2000. Gave existing clients 2 months of notice about the upcoming closure in order to reduce the inconvenience to them.

26 June 2014

From 16 June to 25 June our default payment server did not send out automatic emails immediately after clients made payments, resulting in a short delay before receipts were sent for payments made using that server (since the payments had to be checked manually). This was due to our website service provider changing the email configuration to require SMTP authorization without informing us.

18 October 2013

Website appearance substantially modified; now written in standard HTML5 and CSS3, with no Javascript. There is a link to our legacy website at the bottom left of each webpage for use with older/noncompliant browsers. For example, our website is not displayed well by Internet Explorer (IE) 7 (which was superseded by IE8 in March 2009), which is also equivalent to "IE10 Compatibility View". If you experience difficulties viewing our website you could switch off Compatibility View (if you are using IE10), upgrade your browser (e.g., if you are using IE7), or use our legacy website. (Please note that the legacy website was removed on 3 October 2019.)

4 July 2013

Prices for shortest and longest advertised turnarounds per 270 words decreased from NZ$ 39 to NZ$ 33 and from NZ$ 28 to NZ$ 24, respectively.

26 July 2012

Prices for shortest and longest advertised turnarounds per 270 words increased from NZ$ 32 to NZ$ 39 and from NZ$ 22 to NZ$ 28, respectively.

13 July 2012

Main website and contact email address (both hosted in Canada) were down for several hours.

19 January 2012

Prices for shortest and longest advertised turnarounds per 270 words decreased from NZ$ 39 to NZ$ 32 and from NZ$ 28 to NZ$ 22, respectively.

11 August 2011

Main website and contact email address (both hosted in Canada) were down for several hours.

8 August 2011

To ensure the reliability and availability of our service, we now have three independent websites (hosted on servers in Canada, Hong Kong, and New Zealand) and four independent email addresses at which to contact us. The status of each website and email address is available here.

Main contact email address (hosted in Canada) was down for several hours.

17 March 2011

Now using Microsoft Word 2007, and hence are able to edit files in the Office Open XML format (e.g., with the ".docx" extension) or in the Word 97/2000/2003 format (with the ".doc" extension).

18 February 2011

Removed the description of a faster-than-advertised service from the price and turnaround page, due to very high current work volumes making these impossible. This service will be reinstated as soon as is possible, but this might not be for the next few months.

22 October 2010

Mirror website (hosted in New Zealand) was down for approximately 24 hours.

22 May 2009

One of our domain names was used as a spoof return address for spam, as indicated by our receipt of bounced emails that have not reached their destinations (we experienced the same problem in September 2005 and August 2004). These mailings were not generated by either our computers or those of the company that hosts this website, but instead were due to the Internet email system allowing anyone to send out emails using any return address under any domain he or she wishes.

22 April 2009

Mirror website (hosted in New Zealand) was down for 4 hours.

12 August 2008

For the past week the server hosting the mirror website (hosted in Colorado, USA) was unreliable, periodically not allowing the site to be updated and also not receiving email. The hosting company has therefore migrated the website to a server in New Zealand.

6 December 2007

Mirror website was down for 2 days due to a server hardware failure.

31 August 2007

Prices for shortest and longest advertised turnarounds per 270 words increased from NZ$ 38 to NZ$ 39 and from NZ$ 25 to NZ$ 28, respectively.

10 May 2007

Website now indicates the current response time for us to reply to email messages.

28 January 2007

Mirror website was down for 12 hours.

9 November 2006

Minimum and maximum prices of our service now vary with our workload and editor availability.

14 August 2006

Removed the four default service levels from the price and turnaround page, which now lists the price for each available turnaround date.

8 July 2006

Hosting of main website moved to a new server (due to continuing denial-of-service attacks on the previous server).

6 July 2006

Added super-urgent service as a default service level to the price and turnaround page.

26 June 2006

The server that hosts our main website is experiencing another denial-of-service attack. We are currently redirecting website and email accesses to our mirror website and email server.

20 June 2006

The server that hosts our main website was subject to a denial-of-service attack for approximately 24 hours, which rendered both the website and the associated email address inaccessible.

8 April 2006

The prices for turnarounds faster than that for our urgent service are now linearly interpolated between those for our urgent and super-urgent services (until now, all such turnarounds were uniformly charged at our super-urgent rate).

1 April 2006

Mirror website and email communications were down for 12 hours due to a planned upgrade of the hosting server.

17 March 2006

Reduced the maximum volume discount from 15% to 10%.

2 March 2006

Website hosted in New Zealand moved to the United States due to unreliability and poor service from the hosting company.

23 December 2005

Both payment systems were down for 4 hours due to a nationwide failure of the New Zealand EFTPOS network.

29 October 2005

Website hosted in the UK moved to New Zealand due to unreliability and poor service from the hosting company.

30 September 2005

One of our domain names is currently being used as a spoof return address for spam, as indicated by our receipt of bounced emails that have not reached their destinations (we experienced the same problem in August 2004). These mailings are not generated by either our computers or those of the company that hosts this website, but instead are due to the Internet mail system allowing anyone to send out emails using any return address under any domain he or she wishes.

14 September 2005

Implemented volume discounts.

15 August 2005

End of the price reductions implemented on 12 July 2005.

12 July 2005

Temporary reductions in prices for the urgent, semi-urgent, and standard services (by 20%, 15%, and 10%, respectively).

4 July 2005

Added a webpage listing some of the journals in which ESE-edited manuscripts have been published.

20 May 2005

Job processing fee reduced from NZ$ 30 to NZ$ 20. Contact phone and fax numbers also changed.

6 May 2005

To ensure the reliability and availability of our service, we now have three independent websites (hosted on servers in New Zealand, the USA, and the UK) and three independent email addresses at which to contact us (hosted in New Zealand, the USA, and Switzerland). The status of each website and email address is available here.

30 April 2005

Payment facility at UK-hosted website withdrawn.

15 April 2005

The UK-hosted ESE website and associated email addresses were broken for 5 days due to a problem with an upgrade of the hosting server. The US-hosted website and email addresses were not affected.

27 March 2005

Online price calculator broken for 1 day due to problems with website FTP server preventing uploading of turnaround times.

12 March 2005

Online credit card processing broken for 2 days following upgrade of website PHP to version 4.3.10. The problem took a while to debug, but the fix required only a minor change to one line in a PHP script file hosted on the website.

3 February 2005

Unable to send messages to clients with addresses provided by Hanmail (a South Korean company), due to Hanmail blocking all messages from the company that provides our SMTP email facility (we have been unable to determine the reason for Hanmail's policy).

1 December 2004

Website appearance substantially modified.

28 November 2004

This website and the associated email communications were broken for a few hours.

15 October 2004

Implemented an explicit quality guarantee.

15 September 2004

All editing prices are now rounded down to the nearest whole New Zealand dollar.

12 August 2004

Added this news page to the website.

11 August 2004

For several days our domain name was used as a spoof return address for spam, as indicated by our receipt of bounced emails that had not reached their destinations. These mailings were not generated by either our computers or those of the company that hosts this website, but instead were due to the Internet mail system allowing anyone to send out emails using any return address under any domain he or she wishes.

We sincerely apologize to all people who received this spam, but unfortunately there was nothing we could do to stop it. Spam will remain a very unwelcome feature of Internet usage until there is some cost associated with the sending of email messages. We believe that regulating against spam will never be effective, but that it could be virtually eliminated overnight if the sending of an email message was subject to a nominal cost (even one substantially lower than 1 cent per message, which could be collected by the providers of email facilities).

17 July 2004

Increase in the extra fees for bank transfer and cheque payments that are not sent in New Zealand dollars (to more accurately reflect the deductions made by banks before we receive the funds).

19 June 2004

End of the price reductions implemented on 19 May 2004.

19 May 2004

Temporary reductions in prices for the urgent and semi-urgent services (by 15% and 10%, respectively).

15 May 2004

Introduction of fees for bank transfer and cheque payments that are not sent in New Zealand dollars (to reflect the deductions made by banks before we receive the funds).

7 May 2004

Clients can now choose any turnaround date between those for our urgent and standard services.

2 March 2004

Online credit card payment system implemented.

20 January 2004

Physical location moved from Wellington to Auckland (both in New Zealand).

8 August 2003

ESE email communications were broken for 2 hours.

11 May 2003

ESE email communications were broken for several hours.

28 March 2003

End of the price reductions implemented on 6 March 2003.

6 March 2003

Temporary reductions in prices for the urgent, semi-urgent, and standard services (by 20%, 15%, and 10%, respectively).

20 September 2002

Economy service withdrawn.

7 June 2002

Website now advertises the current turnarounds for our services.

11 July 2001

Economy service introduced.

27 April 2001

Website appearance substantially modified.

17 April 2001

Physical location moved from Auckland to Wellington (both in New Zealand).

9 January 2001

Job processing fee implemented.

1 August 2000

Now accept payments by credit card.

4 May 2000

ESE website implemented.