Services
I offer a variety of services depending on what your particular writing or research needs are. The cost of services depends on your particular timeline, and services are listed here in order from least to most expensive hourly rate. If you’d like to discuss further, please feel free to fill out the Contact form, and I’d be happy to get back to you with a quote.
Copy Editing
Copy editing services encompass the last steps of an editing process before the document is finished and sent off to publication (or to an application committee, dissertation chair, etc.). This is the most basic and commonly requested type of editing service.
Copy editing services include the following:
Checking for grammatical correctness and fixing errors
Ensuring that proper nouns and specialized terms use the most commonly accepted spelling, capitalization, punctuation, etc.
Improving general readability by prioritizing concision and flow
Adhering to a citation style’s guidelines on specific issues (e.g., which numbers should be spelled out, how terms should be abbreviated, etc.)
Making formatting adjustments per the journal, citation style, or university’s guidelines
Editing references to adhere to a given citation style
Copy editing services may include some suggestions for structural organization if I notice it, and think it will make a big difference, but I won’t be focusing on those things per se—I assume that the structure and content of the piece are finished, and that all that is needed is editing at the sentence level.
These copy edits are made using Microsoft Word’s track changes feature, which you can use to accept or reject each suggested change in turn. Additionally, I will leave comments on areas where there is more than one possible option and where the meaning might change depending on which you choose. As I want you to maintain complete authorship over your work, the comments system works best for providing you with thoroughly explained options that will help you make the right decisions for your writing.
Developmental Editing
Developmental editing refers to feedback at the broader level of a writing’s structure, organization, argument, and style. At this stage, we are still thinking big picture--how can the writing achieve what you, as the author, intend for it to communicate? Are there gaps in the argument you are developing? Are you using the most optimal structure, or does it need some re-visioning? Does your writing style—the amount of jargon, the balance of long vs. short sentences, etc.—engage with the reader, or does the writing need a little more “oomph”?
For this type of editing, I may make some direct edits, using Word’s track changes, at the paragraph level (editing topic sentences, reordering sentences within a paragraph, splitting paragraphs that are too long, deleting redundancies). With any major structural upheavals, I will make comments explaining why a change would be beneficial to your writing. Similarly, I will make suggestions or offer prodding questions to help you develop your argument. This is so that you can maintain maximum control over how your written piece will look in the end, as only you hold the complete vision for what you want your writing to be.
At the developmental stage, your writing is doing just that—developing. There should be a healthy dialogue between where your writing is, how I receive it and give feedback, and then how you take your writing and develop it further. For that reason, I welcome conversation via email at no additional charge to help clarify the suggestions I’ve made, and with the hope that this back-and-forth will help you come to your best ideas.
Because the writing at this stage is in flux, it often doesn’t make sense to do sentence-level copy editing yet—why spend a lot of time (and money) fixing sentences that might be removed anyway? However, some authors do choose to receive sentence-level copy editing simultaneously with developmental editing so that they can get a strong handle on what their patterns of error are, or to improve the professionalism of the document so that it looks more acceptable for a dissertation chair or journal editor to review. If you would like to receive both services at once, please inquire further with the Contact form.
Writing Coaching
Often times, our difficulties with writing have far less to do with the actual mechanics of putting sentences and paragraphs together than they do with the process of sitting down to write. If you are someone who struggles with procrastination or writing anxiety, wants to develop a more consistent writing schedule, or desires to learn more about the conventions of academic writing, my writing coaching services are for you.
As your writing coach, I would meet with you via Zoom, phone, or email (whichever you prefer) to help you build a personalized and sustainable system of writing. As someone who has been through the grueling process of writing a dissertation, I know firsthand how difficult it can be to have a huge project looming in front of you with little direction on how to proceed with getting it done. The writing anxiety can be paralyzing, and it can be easy to enter a shame spiral when you feel you aren’t making enough progress! I have found ways to make the writing process more manageable, and sometimes, even a little fun. I’d be happy to share some of these strategies and tools with you, but more importantly, collaborate with you to develop a system that works best for YOU.