Hi guys!

I only need to know if I am turning mental. Your words of wisdom please.

I am in a science based PhD. I received the manuscript of a fairly recent accepted publication, which has to be approved by the author. I generally have to add the odd reference here and there, and the comments are really straight forward. I have no problem addressing them, but all the commas and semicolons are completely wrong! This paper was written before I learned how to punctuate properly. Now the whole thing bugs me, why didn't the editor correct commas? What shall I do? Shall I correct it or just leave it like this? What would appear worse, the psycho stickler, who goes around in a red pen correcting commas, or the grammatically ignorant scientist?

Everything would have been much simpler if I hadn't read " eats, shoots & leaves".

ah, errant apostrophes, the joys...

Lynne Truss has some grammar and punctuation exercises online which I 'used' on my most recent tutorial group - I think they all thought I had gone mad!

Hey! We've all been there lol! If it was me, I'd correct every single one of them, knowing that I'd be kicking myself when it came out in print and there were mistakes all over it. At the end of the day, even though content is the main thing, the use of language does impact on how you feel about something you've read, so I'd sort it. Who knows why the editor hasn't picked up on it! But I'm really fussy when I get a proof of something- I recently sent a 'final proof' back to the editors because the spacing throughout the whole paper was completely inconsistent and I thought it reflected badly upon me as the first author. But that's just me- everyone's different! Congrats on your paper! KB

Thanks guys. I think I will try to sort it out even if it makes everyone realise that I am a sad stickler, a miserable perfectionist with no life of my one.

Apostrophes behave themselves, but commas randomly appear between words escaping from places they should be.

Surprisingly enough, the publisher is quite famous.