The best-value academic proofreading does much more than a superficial spelling and grammar check, and it takes much more than just a fresh pair of eyes.
My proofreading is like fine-tuning. Drawing on both a subeditor’s flair for detail and a scholar’s grasp of academic style, I calibrate every aspect of your final, ready-to-submit document so it balances context with consistency.
Proofreading is worth investing in, no matter how painstakingly you’ve checked your own work. You’ll inevitably miss typos and other small textual errors, just because you’re so close to your own writing.
Importantly, I also pick up the mistakes and inconsistencies that iterative drafting and editing can introduce into your work.
A feedback comment or note-to-self you forgot to delete. A style you decided to change halfway through. Or an odd fragment from an older draft that snuck into the final version.
I spot these rough patches instantly. I love polishing them out so you’ll come across as careful and disciplined.
The whole document, not just the text.
I always say the key difference between copyediting and proofreading is that copyediting improves your expression, while proofreading improves your presentation.
The best-value proofreading considers your document holistically, so your layout is as consistent and error-free as the text. That way, everything fits together harmoniously.
So I pay attention to your hierarchies of headings and subheadings, and how you style your block quotes and bulleted or numbered lists. How your paragraphs bunch or break as they flow across lines and pages. The spots where you need to create more white space, or delete it.
And I check your graphic elements, including illustrations and tables. Are they placed and labelled correctly and consistently?
An action list to cut through overwhelm.
While my copyediting approach is consultative and lets you complete your drafting process your way, my proofreading lifts away the stress and overwhelm of decision-making at the final stage of your project.
Whether I annotate a PDF or make tracked changes in an editable file, I’ll show you exactly what to fix, where, and how.
Just make the changes, and you’re good to go.
The detailed Editing Style Notes document I create for you makes everything clear. It sets out your standard patterns of capitalisation, emphasis, spelling, word order, punctuation, citation and much more. I refer to it myself to stay on track as I proofread.
The Style Notes also document your deliberate and unconventional style choices. That way, I make sure I’m proofreading sensitively ‘inside the lines’, preserving the quirks that make your project unique.