Editing and proofreading to bring your writing to the next level

Mistakes can hurt your image

Grammar and punctuation mistakes might seem like minor things, but they can plant an impression in your reader’s mind that you are not conscientious or reliable. While this isn’t a problem when chatting with friends on social media, it can be disastrous if your audience is a boss, a professor, a client, or a potential customer.

Every piece of writing needs a second look

Even if you’re careful about correcting mistakes, you can still miss things. The closer you are to the project, the easier it is for your eyes to glide over typos and other subtle errors. That also goes for professional editors. Editors know it’s unwise for an editor who’s worked on earlier stages of a manuscript to also do the final proofread.

Your writing is worth it

You put a lot of effort into your writing. Don’t squander the value it can bring you. An editor can help your writing achieve its full potential.

I’m ready to help

I have been working with words for years. I have a PhD in History and a decade of experience teaching at the university level. There is probably no mistake I could find in your project that I have not already seen many times in student papers.

Services

I offer two services, copyediting and proofreading.

These are different from each other, and also different from other kinds of editing out there, so let me explain what they entail.

Proofreading

Proofreading is done at the very end of the production process, right before the document goes to print (or goes live on a website, or gets handed in to a professor). It includes

  • Correcting grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes
  • Making sure a single spelling standard is used throughout (US, UK, Oxford, Canadian, Australian)
  • Ensuring a consistent typographical style (e.g. serial comma, capitalization of titles, whether to put an apostrophe or an apostrophe-s after Jones)
  • Cleaning up the formatting of citations (but not fact-checking them)

When I proofread, I do not make any changes to the wording of the original unless absolutely necessary to correct grammar or punctuation mistakes.

Proofreading should never be the only editing done on a work. There must always be several earlier passes to catch structural and stylistic issues before coming to the proofread stage. If you do a proofread and then have to do some rewriting, some of that proofreading will have been wasted.

Copyediting

Copyediting (or, more specifically, line editing) is the stage before the final proofread. The document’s overall structure is in place. No changes need be made on the chapter or paragraph level. Copyediting is a matter of going line by line to make sure each sentence flows smoothly. It includes

  • Making sure pronouns point to the right nouns
  • Checking for dangling modifiers
  • Flagging for the author any words used incorrectly
  • Clearing up, or flagging for the author, any ambiguous passages
  • Making changes to the text to reduce wordiness, avoid jargon, and smooth transitions

Before submitting a manuscript for copyediting, you need to make sure all the major elements of the text are in place and in the right order. Every paragraph is where you want it to be and says what you want it to say.

I do not copyedit and proofread at the same time. They require different forms of attention. When you copyedit you’re looking sentence by sentence and keeping track of how the sentences flow together. When you proofread, you’re looking word by word and comma by comma.

Copyediting and proofreading therefore operate on two different levels of scale. If I (or anyone else) tried to do both at once, I’d end up doing neither really well.

Rates

Here are my base rates. (Prices are in US dollars.)

per wordper 1,000 words
Copyediting1.8¢$18
Proof­reading1.2¢$12

The industry standard is to count a page as 250 words. So 1.2¢ per word is $3.00 per page, and 1.8¢ per word is $4.50 per page.

Surcharges apply for highly technical matter (e.g. grad school papers) and for papers written in poor English.

Turnaround time depends on the length of the manuscript and the level of editing. I will let you know what to expect when I give you your quote. Rush pricing is available if you need the job done in a hurry.

How the process works

  1. Contact me on the form below. I will reply within 24 hours with a quote.
  2. If you agree to the job, I’ll send you a contract to sign electronically.
  3. When I’ve completed the edit, I’ll email you two copies of the finished document, one showing the Track Changes markup and the other a clean final edit.

Contact

Use the form below to request a quote or just to ask a question. I look forward to hearing from you!