Master’s and Doctoral Editing Specialists
This is basically a portal to send your work and pay for your work. Most of our clients come via referrals: friends, cohorts, and supervisors/chairs/committee members. We are also on a number of editing lists. Anyone who finds us is welcome to submit work though.
Our process is simple:
- Submit a clean document (no comments or tracking) and any supporting documents.
- Pay upfront, so that the focus is on the work and not on money.
Reasons for editing?
From an editor’s perspective:
It is a true that many a brilliant proposal/thesis/dissertation is blocked because incorrect formatting (especially APA) and poor grammar and language choices were what the committee focused on and complained about. Understanding content is often obscured by poor language. It is also true that those standards are there for a reason. Being a sound academic candidate implies that one pays attention to detail, and a soundly written and formatted document is one of the ways in which attention to detail and respect for academic standards is assessed. So be sure to have your document edited at least once or better still get at least one edit or a series of edits at critical moments: per chapter if that works for you, proposal, completed document, a second look at the final document.
From a university perspective:
Here are two comments for students from two separate universities. Both know the value of a good copy edit by an outside editor.
All … dissertations must be reviewed by a professional editor prior to submission of the final electronic copy of the dissertation. Editors are paid up front.
Editing the dissertation prior to publication is an important aspect of scholarly writing. Editors typically perform the following functions as part of the editing process: Grammar and Proofreading, Style and Format Editing, Citation to Reference verification, University Specific Formatting.
Editors do not change the integrity or meaning of the content, write content, or delete portions of the content. Editors do not add missing information in reference sections but do note when additional information is needed.
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During the dissertation review, you will benefit from perspectives and recommendations from eight levels of review; three committee members, one academic reviewer, two IRB reviewers, the APA editor, and the Dean’s review. The purpose of these reviews is not punitive, but is intended to increase your scholarly writing abilities and to ensure that the dissertations produced by students … are scholarly in form and style.