FredRooks.com – linguistic, translation and editorial services
for your science and business

Bring your communication up to snuff

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

Bring your communication up to snuff

FredRooks.com – linguistic, translation and editorial services
for your science and business

Translations English revisions Publication preparation Free (as in freedom) software Websites Language coaching

Contact me

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).

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

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

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

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

When translating I rely on my own mind, previous translations, and trusted, high-quality sources of terminology and knowledge, not some LLM or other algorithm. However, I do, of course, use a computer, and my computer-assisted translation (CAT) software of choice is OmegaT, which (among other benefits) gives me interoperability with SDL Trados.

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¹ Nowadays retronymously also referred to as ‘transcreation’

² Without the involvement of AI (artificial idiocy, not to be confused with artificial intelligence, which doesn't yet exist)

English language editing, copy editing and proofreading

Are you looking for a knowledgeable and experienced native English speaker 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 to present yourself or your company in proper English?

You have more than likely just found the right person.

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Technical publication preparation

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

I can help you out various ways aside from translating and working with text: I can typeset your publication at a professional level, I'm well-versed in utilizing the statistical power and graphical capabilities of R, Python and their libraries.

I am also prepared to help you out in just about any aspect of the publication process, including communication with members of editorial boards, responding to reviewers' comments and all sorts of technical minutiae.

Translation curation and project management

Do you have a translation / localization project on your todo list and feel daunted by the task? It might well make sense for you to outsource its management to me.

I'm well equipped to oversee translation projects of any size, taking advantage of tools such as OmegaT (for computer-assisted translation), Git (for version control), NextCloud (for file storage and collaboration) and Odoo (for the business and project management side of things) in cooperation with your team of employees or contractors.

Software localization and documentation

Localizing software or maintaining documentation for it poses specific challenges and requires knowledge not only of languages, but also of the software being translated or documented, processes that it is designed to serve and the tools that programmers use to make applications multi-lingual, as well as empathy towards their users and developers alike.

As a user of a lot of software, most of it free (as in freedom), I frequently come across funny, awkward, confusing or otherwise lacking usage of English by developers or localization into other languages. Needless to say, the situation has not improved since the advent of LLMs much, if at all.

I am currently working on translating parts of Odoo and modules for it into Czech to make it suit my needs and am in good stead to offer such work to others. I offer discounts on the localization of free / open-source software.

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 the free-of-charge Odoo Community Edition, though I continue to employ WordPress, which is still a good CMS for certain applications. I deploy servers running Debian and make use of HAProxy for load balancing and high availability.

I deploy Odoo to run websites, sell products, memberships and services, manage projects, customers, suppliers and stocks, and issue invoices and collect payments. A forum or online course? No problem. Odoo is not suitable only for large and medium-sized companies, but also for small projects and freelancers and doesn't have to be expensive at all.

Deployment of free (as in freedom) software

Whether in science, business or personal life, a lack of freedom, privacy or control is always detrimental. Vendor lock-in, anti-features, insufficient data security and extortive licensing practices have plagued the world since the dawn of personal computers. And what's even worse, corporations keep tightening their grip on people, companies and state institutions by luring them into the trap of software provided as a service, including large language models. These now allow everyone to shoot themselves in the foot with an even larger calibre gun than anything from Microsoft.

Luckily, nowadays, everyone can choose whether to inflict self-harm by using proprietary software or services controlled by someone else or whether not to give up freedom, control, flexibility, privacy and often heaps of money.

I believe that the better alternative is to run free software (in the sense used by the Free Software Foundation) on premise and with access limited to trusted persons. I personally rely on Debian, LibreOffice, OmegaT, Darktable, NextCloud and Odoo for about everything and will gladly help make free software and protocols work for you, too.

Language coaching

Are you purposefully working on your English communication skills, looking to level up your pronunciation or looking to improve your fluency?

Are you preparing for a speech at a conference, planning to make a popular video in English or learning to sing an English song or opera, aiming for the best outcome possible?

Then I suggest that you find a good English language coach that you enjoy chatting with. If you decide to try me out, I'll happily take a break from typing and help you achieve your objective.

Anything you publish becomes part of your legacy

Why not make it as good as possible?

Contact me

Recent topics

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

enzyme biochemistry · mathematical molecular modelling · computer-aided drug design · metabolic engineering · drug discovery · drug delivery · flood protection technology · ichthyological monitoring · biochemistry of mRNA · peptide pharmacochemistry · physical chemistry · physiochemistry · plant metabolomics · protein biochemistry · radiopharmacochemistry · structural membrane biology · synthetic organic chemistry · quantum chemistry · archaeology of Great Moravia · plant cytogenomics · Arctic dendrochronology · plant population biology · functional virology · plant taxonomy · organic photochemistry · palaeontology of Tertiary and Quaternary sediments · plant physiological ecology · fish protection · tropical geobiocoenology · polyploid evolution · 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 · pharmaceutical analytical chemistry · dendrodemography · cancer research · Raman spectroscopy · a new species of pine from Vietnam · plant evolutionary genomics · RNA biochemistry · subtropical wetland ecology · viral hepatology · invasion ecology in India · seed dispersal by neotropical scatter-hoarding rodents · regulated cell death · alien flora of Mount Kinabalu · nanodiamond engineering · NMR spectroscopy · machine learning from spectroscopic data . . .

(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.)

What I don't do

For an array of reasons I usually decline all jobs on texts concerning, about, involving or pertaining to the following:

pseudoscience and quackery of all sorts (especially 'alternative medicine', unfounded therapies, etc.) · religion · political ‘science’ · philosophy (I've had enough of that, thank you) · most studies in the humanities, including the majority of sociology and psychology (this does not apply to your work if you do good science in these fields) · insufficiently founded marketing · nonsense in general · technofascist and other propaganda or disinformation

(Please understand that there are fields I'm just not good at, ones I oppose, some that are beyond my comprehension, and some to which I object conscientiously.)

My background is in natural 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). This gives me the opportunity to contribute to the publications of some of the very best scientists in Czechia, often published in some of the most prestigious journals.

I'm a tech and 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.

From a client's point of view, dealings with me typically follow this sequence:

Request a quote

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

Place an order and send me your manuscript

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

Address my questions and comments and bring up your questions, criticisms and wishes

During the editing, translation or production process, I typically ask questions, request clarification or seek verification. Sometimes your feedback is instrumental in completing the job. I may provide you with one or several consecutive results, and it is up to you to decide which is the final one.

Receive the end result and invoice

When you are fully happy with the result and don't require any additional assistance from me, I issue an invoice based on our agreed terms.

Pay

Make your payment after receiving an invoice. You can order a bank transfer (to my CZK bank account or one of my wise.com accounts in other currencies – EUR, GBP, USD; others on request), pay by card through Stripe or meet up with me for a coffee or beer and pay in cash.

Give feedback and request further assistance if necessary or desired

The processes of peer review and publication take time, as they should, and I'm always eager to hear how any submission fares and happy to help out with revisions or any finishing touches. I do not charge extra for the processing of even repeated minor revisions and the reading of galley proofs.

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 but prioritize quality over speed of dispatch. As a guideline, my current typical (= most frequent) rates and delivery times are also indicated below:

If you or one of your co-authors are 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 the information on the institue's intranet).

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)

All 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)

All 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

All prices are negotiable.

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

Contact me

This is my current gang, plus the dog. I don't count the dog in because it has weed on all three legs of my piano. One simply does not do such a thing to me and still receive favourable mentions or even mere positive thoughts.

(June 2025)

Finally visiting Liszt's last apartment in Budapest (January 2025).

Typical me amusing myself with fungi, wearing inappropriate footwear in a leech-ridden Vietnamese jungle (February 2024).

Me rejoicingly expressing my opinion of dear old communist ideology by the statue of good old Mr Lenin in Hanoi (February 2024).

I tend to spend most of the time by myself or in the hard-to-avoid company of my children and possible future trouble-and-strife. It is said that posting pictures of oneself in the jolly company of others raises one's online attractiveness, so here I am with a bunch of upbeat botanists in the autumn of 2024.

Contrary to what people think, I don't spend all the time in my man cave or at the piano. Actually, I do get out on occasion to do actual, albeit usually utterly useless, things in the physical world. It is only seldom witnessed.

I once spoke to a psychiatrist, who asked what he could do for me, and I told him to go a way, have me put on a mountain and leave me alone. He didn't do any of that—absolutely pathetic! (January 2024)

Poeple are often surprised that I have kids—two, actually, and soon there will be three.

(December 2024)

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: