Some businesses offer a broad range of academic and non-academic editorial services. These can range from copyediting, proofreading and indexing to grant writing, developmental and structural editing, and document design and formatting.
I’m an elite academic editor because I specialise in editing. I’m passionate about helping your research benefit from my expertise.
Here’s a guide to how my work differs from – and complements – other services.
Grant writing
Oh, the pain of preparing grant applications! I know it’s one of academia’s most stressful and time-consuming tasks. I’ve even sat on peer assessment panels. But I don’t draft grant applications from scratch.
Grant writing is its own specialist field that requires an in-depth knowledge of the funding environment. And grant writers proudly point to their track records in funding success.
That said, I can definitely copyedit or proofread your draft funding application, tender or proposal before you submit.
Copyediting is even more vital for these documents. Assessors need to quickly grasp the significance of your research because of the volume of applications they read. When you brief me to copyedit your funding application, I can ensure you’re responding succinctly to the published selection criteria.
I can also proofread your application when it’s ready to submit. After you’ve drafted and redrafted, and incorporated feedback from colleagues, errors can creep into your documentation. You might not spot them on your own, in the stressful pre-submission period.
And because funding is so competitive, assessors can eliminate any application that looks even a little sloppy.
If you’ve already got a draft, drop me a line to find out how I can make it shine.
Ghostwriting and shadow supervision
I love to work closely with an author on a big project. Some of my favourite projects have involved copyediting a scholarly book chapter by chapter, and revisiting it at proofreading stage. It’s so enjoyable to follow the project over time, and help its ideas take their final form.
As well as copyediting, I’m also open to taking on a developmental editing role with an early-career researcher working on their first book, or a more experienced academic who’s keen for some structural guidance.
But to protect your academic integrity, I’m very careful to stay out of the substance of your work. I don’t write for you, I don’t suggest lines of argument, and I don’t interpret literature or research data.
If you’re a higher research degree candidate, I set even stricter limits on my editorial involvement, in line with IPEd’s Guidelines for Editing Research Theses. Your thesis needs to demonstrate your capacity for independent research, so I strive to avoid becoming your ‘shadow supervisor’.
It’s a grey area, though! That’s why I developed my intensive copyediting service.
For me it’s ethical because it sticks within the bounds of what copyediting does – improving clarity of expression and flow in a particular piece of writing. And it preserves the project-based nature of copyediting. But it’s specifically more interventionist, for when your writing needs more help.
Design, layout and formatting
Because I’ve worked in print publishing, I know my way around a layout. However, I’ve also worked closely with publication designers, and I’ve edited quite a few design research projects. This has made me realise I have Editing Eyes, not Design Eyes.
That’s why I don’t format your manuscript as a final print-ready or submission-ready document. Designers are masters of form: typefaces, text styles and white space. Creating a clean, gorgeous document is intuitive to them in a way it isn’t to me. And they’re dab hands at converting your files to optimised PDF layouts.
But the text itself – your content, your ideas – can just be lorem ipsum to them.
Meanwhile, as I copyedit and proofread, I’m all about the details. I notice inconsistent kerning, tracking and line spacing. I pick up missing italics, or weird shifts in font or point size. I ensure that footnotes and figures are numbered consecutively and placed correctly in the text. I can even trim your text to fit your layout without sacrificing meaning or flow.
I also leave document-level formatting choices in Microsoft Word, Google Docs or Apple Pages to you, as a matter of academic integrity. You know your data best, so you should create tables and edit image files. You should also be in charge of structural aspects of formatting, such as heading hierarchies and tables of contents.
That said, I always note your formatting in my Editing Style Notes so I can check it’s handled consistently. Whenever I spot any errors or inconsistencies, I’ll flag them in a comment. That way, you – or your designer – can tidy them up.
If you’ve got your design and formatting covered, I’m ready to get to work on your writing.