FredRooks.c​om – linguistic, translation and publication services
​for your science and business​​


FredRooks.c​om – linguistic, translation and publication services​ ​for your science and business​​


English language editing, copy editing
and proofreading

Looking for someone knowledgeable and experienced to meticulously go over your
all-important text at any stage of the publication process?


Do you wish to address your customers in a way that makes perfect sense and present yourself or your company in proper English?


You have more than likely found the right person.

Publication services

Are you looking for help with getting somehing out and published, be it a paper, dissertation, annual report or book?

I can help you out various ways aside from language editing.

Also, I'm a long-term extensive user of LaTeX, if you need your document typeset at a professional level, I'm well-versed in utilizing the statistical power and graphical capabilities of R, while being no stranger to Python and its libraries, and I'm prepared to help you out in just about any aspect of the publication process, including communication with members of editorial boards, responding to reviewers's comments and technical minutiae.

​Translation¹ from Czech to English, from Slovak and German to English, and from English to Czech

Do you need a high-quality, human² translation from Czech (or Slovak or German) into English or from English into Czech?


Are you expanding to a new market wanting to appear uncompromisingly professional
and thus differentiate against your competition? Are you looking for a linguist that knows his way around software / website localization and speaks the languate of developers?


Then get in touch, and I'll make your project mine or join your team.

___________
¹ Nowadays retronymously also referred to as a ‘transcreation’

² Without the involvement of AI (artificial idiocy)

Website building

Are you in need of a nice, modern, bi- or multi-language, typographically sound, SEO-honed and feature-rich personal or business website that can grow with your activities? I build responsive websites for searchability, performance, accessibility, maintainability and expandability, in cooperation with any good graphic artist (which I am not) of your choice if need be.


For most of what I do nowadays I deploy Odoo Community Edition, though I continue to employ WordPress, which I'll carry on doing for the forseable future, and I'im also starting to play with ERPNext. I make use of HAProxy for load balancing and high availability.

See my portfolio of running websites / ERP systems, ranging from small to rather extensive.

If you or one of your co-authors is affiliated with the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IOCB Prague), you are eligible to have your text edited for free by me or my colleague scientific editor (see information on the intranet).

English language editing

Looking for someone knowledgeable and experienced to meticulously go over your
all-important text?


You have more than likely found the right person.


See my copy editor's credentials.

Publication services

Are you looking for help with getting somehing out and published, be it a paper, dissertation, annual report or book?

I can help you out various ways aside from language editing.

Also, I'm a long-term extensive user of LaTeX, if you need your document typeset at a professional level, I'm well-versed in utilizing the statistical power and graphical capabilities of R, while being no stranger to Python and its libraries, and I'm prepared to help you out in just about any aspect of the publication process, including communication with members of editorial boards, answering to reviewers and technical minutiae.

Translation between Czech and English

Do you need a proper, human translation* from Czech (or Slovak) into English or vice versa?

I like translating more than almost anything else I get paid for. I'm not the cheapest and I'm not the quickest, but I do what it takes to give you the best translation that makes sense.

___________
*Nowadays retronymously also referred to as a ‘transcreation’


See my translator's credentials.


Website building

Are you in need of a nice, modern, typographically sound, SEO-honed and feature-rich personal or business website that can grow with your activities? I build websites for searchability, performance, maintainability and expandability, in cooperation with any good graphic artist (which I am not) of your choice if need be.


For most of what I do nowadays I deploy Odoo Community Edition, though I continue to employ WordPress, which I'll carry on doing for the forseable future, and I'im also about to start playing with ERPNext.

See my portfolio of running websites / ERP systems, ranging from small to rather extensive.

My background is in science

I hold a master's degree in biology from the Faculty of Science at Charles University in Prague.

There, many others were learning the same things that I was, and after we all graduated, it turned out that others were better prepared and more willing to do the things that we had all learnt, moreover often for very little and not infrequently with a big smile on their faces, meaning that I was outcompeted. Soon it dawned on me that the only thing that differentiated me from my pals was my English, of which some were eager to take advantage, which has determined where I am today.

I dropped out of my doctoral studies in plant systematics when I realized that I had two kids (naively, with another botanist, drat) yet we all still lived in my parents' house. Realizing this, I focused my effort on establishing a business and thus generating the income necessary to secure a separate home.

To my relief and joy, I have since always been in close contact with with science and the bulk of my work still revolves around scientific manuscripts.

I'm experienced

Being as old as I am and having been doing pretty much the same thing as now since about 2007, I think it can be safely said that there is already some experience behind me.

Over the years I have worked on texts from a myriad of scientific fields and a good range of business areas.

I have gained extensive experience with the publication of the ISI-listed journal Folia Geobotanica. I have less to do with this journal today than in the past, but I still hold it close to heart. I consider traditional journals like Folia Geobotanica hugely valuable to science and humanity despite their lower impact factor (see e.g. the article titled The End of Botany).

Apart from everything I've done over the years, my greatest source of experience is my part-time job as one of two scientific editors at IOCB Prague since 2023, which has improved my general knowledge of chemistry and biology, not to mention physics and mathematics, more than anything else so far. After almost two years I'm now aware of more waht I don't know than what I do than ever before.



Papers I process are regularly published in high-impact journals

Since February 2023 I am one of two scientific editors working at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IOCB Prague). o

 


I'm a tech freedom nerd

In my daily work, I take advantage of sophisticated tools such as OmegaT and various advanced parsers and lint tools. My favourite editor is Emacs and I use Emacs keybindings everywhere I can, including LibreOffice, which is part of the reason why I can work so efficiently.

Of course, all my infrastructure (such as Nextcloud and this Odoo website) runs on Debian GNU/Linux on servers under my full control for data safety.

Nevertheless, you won't find me relying on algorithms instead of my brain or chatting to sorts like GPT, and that's not only because we profoundly dislike each other.

If you or one of your co-authors are anyhow affiliated with IOCB Prague, I'm here for you to edit or translate your manuscript for free as part of my daily job.


Please request a quote and time estimate for your desired service. I determine the price of each job and estimate how long it might take on a case-by-case basis, and all prices are negotiable (up or down). Unlike many others, I don't aspire to be the cheapest and prioritize quality over speed of dispatch. As a guideline, my current typical (= most frequent) rates and delivery times are below:

Editing work

Typical price (yours may differ)

CZK 260 .00

€ 10 .30

£ 8 .60

$ 11 .50

per standard page¹
  • Comprehensive editing of your source text, consisting of its detailed reading, a deep examination as to its meaning and logical structure, a thorough grammar check, editing for clarity, readability, effectiveness, consistency, style and adherence to good practices, a typographical clean-up, and a finishing proofread.
  • The form and extent of your involvement in the process is entirely up to you.
  • The job is considered finished when you are happy with the result.
  • Post-peer review assistance at no extra charge, if applicable, unless the piece needs to be rewritten completely.
  • Standard delivery times:
    – Three working days to one week for a well prepared manuscript
    – One to two weeks for a standard manuscript
    – One month or more for an exceptionally badly prepared manuscript

¹ 1,800 characters including spaces or 250 words of the source text (whatever suits you)

Prices are negotiable.

All indicated prices are final and not subject to any additional tax.

Request a quote

Translation work

Typical price (yours may differ)

CZK 460 .00

€ 18 .25

£ 15 .20

$ 20 .35

per standard page¹
  • Human translation of your source text with utmost attention on meaning, terminology, clarity, readability, consistency and style, utilizing CAT (computer-assisted translation) technology.
  • The job is considered finished when you are happy with the result.
  • Post-peer review assistance at no extra charge, if applicable, unless the piece needs to be rewritten completely.
  • Glossary and Translation Memory Exchange (TMX) files are available for sale on request.
  • Standard delivery times:
    One working day per each eight standard pages

¹ 1,800 characters including spaces or 250 words of the source text (whatever suits you)

Prices are negotiable.

All indicated prices are final and not subject to any additional tax.

Request a quote

Other work

Typical price (yours may differ)

CZK 600 .00

€ 23 .80

£ 19 .80

$ 26 .50

per hour¹
  • All work outside of translating and editing, such as typesetting, bibliography processing, copywriting, ghostwriting, content / website building or software deployment
  • Hours are billed based upon prior task-based agreement and invoiced monthly.

¹ One hour of net work time

Prices are negotiable.

All indicated prices are final and not subject to any additional tax.

Request a quote

If you or one of your co-authors is affiliated with the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IOCB Prague), you are eligible to have your text edited for free by me or my colleague scientific editor (see information on the intranet).

TODO


Typical sequence of events with translation and editing jobs:

Request a quote

Contact me to enquire about my availability and the price for the job

Place an order

If you agree with the price and time estimate, place your order and submit your materials.

Answer questions and address comments

Help me out if any issues or questions arise.

Receive the result

After receiving the result, go through it carefully and raise any questions, issues or wishes.

Receive the invoice


When happy with the result, ask me to send you an invoice.

Pay

Make your payment using the agreed method.







Typical me amusing myself with fungi, wearing inappropriate footwear in a leech-ridden Vietnamese jungle.

Recent topics

Recently, I have translated or revised texts, for example, in the following fields:

computer-aided drug design · metabolic engineering · drug discovery · drug delivery · flood protection technology · enzyme biochemistry · mathematical molecular modelling · ichthyological monitoring · fundamental molecular biology · peptide pharmacochemistry · physical chemistry · physiochemistry · plant metabolomics · protein biochemistry · radiopharmacochemistry · structural membrane biology · synthetic organic chemistry · quantum chemistry · plant cytogenomics · archaeology of Great Moravia · Arctic dendrochronology · plant population biology · functional virology · plant taxonomy · organic photochemistry · palaeontology of Tertiary and Quaternary sediments · plant physiological ecology · fish protection · tropical geobiocoenology · evolution of polyploids · environmental toxicology · archaeology of stone knapping and grinding · protein crosslinking · biogeography of the Amazon · data science in mass spectrometry · environmental impact of hydraulic dams · exploratory organic synthesis . . .

(This might seem like a too wide a range of fields for one person to get the meagrest grasp of, but it really isn't. 

Nature is just nature and science is just science—nothing more and nothing less.)

References

In my career so far, I have served hundreds of research teams, individuals and business ventures. Some of my long-term and more recent clients and employers are, or are affiliated with, the following institutions and companies:

Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences(my current employer)
Faculty of Science at Charles University in Prague
Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences
Masaryk University in Brno
T.G. Masaryk Water Research Institute
Palacký University Olomouc


MagicWare
Emergency Response Technologies
Constructis CM Rožmitál pod Třemšínem

Latest blog posts

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Recommended reading and watching

Sabine Hossenfelder's channel

Sabine Hosenfelder's YouTube channel

Being a (green) biologist by education and reviser / translator by profession, I'm completely undereducated in physics and mathematics, a handicap I'm trying to mitigate, at least when I'm not distracted by something else of interest. Fundamental physics and cosmology have nevertheless fascinated me since childhood, and Sabine Hosenfelder scratches this itch of mine regularly.

Watch on YouTube
CHEmic podcast

CHEmic podcast

This podcast, presented by the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Science (IOCB Prague, my current employer), is in Czech only, but if you understand this language, I wholeheartedly recommend binging on it, and if not, I assure you that it is well worth checking it out on YouTube with (autogenerated) subtitles.

Link to the podcast ,  

Dr. Jorge S. Diaz's YouTube channel

I cannot recommend devouring the content of this most fascinating of channels highly enough. It has helped me gain some insight into modern physics and how it has come to be more than many a book and lecture.

Link to the YouTube channel ,