Editing services

My areas of specialty are:

• Academic editing, including theses and dissertations, journal articles for publication, essays, grant proposals, and statements of intent.
• Editing for humanities subjects, with specialized knowledge in architecture history and theory and design.
• Professional architectural communications: project proposals, statements of project and design intent, discussions of sustainability.
• Respectful and collaborative ESL language corrections for students and academics.

Types of editing

• Developmental Editing
• Structural Editing
• Copyediting
• Proofreading

Developmental editing

Working with the writer from an early stage to define the scope and particulars of the piece. For academic and professional writing, this includes specifying what a paper’s argument is, whether the argument make sense, and how to express that argument in its simplest, clearest form. Developmental editing specifies the writing goal: is the paper an argumentative or explorational essay? Is it research-based, or a review of literature, or does it involve both? Which style guides will be followed? The document’s introduction, conclusion, and topic sentences within paragraphs are evaluated for their necessity and effectiveness; sometimes reordering the argument is recommended. This editing pass can include suggestions for necessary information that ought to be included and extraneous information which can be omitted or relegated to footnotes. Developmental editing involves broad, summary feedback on what works in the document and what needs revising, as well as selective comments on particular aspects of the argument that are important or require improvement.

Editor feedback looks like a document annotated with comments on issues large to small. These will consist of overall statements about what works and what doesn’t, and remarks on specific aspects of the writing through the piece, without getting ensnared in sentence-level details. Recurrent writing errors that stand out to the editor may be corrected as an FYI for the writer.
After this feedback, the rewriting and revision process continues. Either the feedback is sufficient for the writer to know what to do next, and we move on to another stage of editing if necessary after revisions have been made. Otherwise, several rounds of feedback may occur as part of the editing process.

Structural editing

A heavy edit, finessing all aspects of the work from its structure to its language. This type of editing is appropriate for academic writing where the author is confident in the research they have conducted and the argument they are presenting. However, they would like some help finessing their writing so their argument is as coherent as possible. They may have received feedback that external editing would clarify their work.

This edit combats wordiness, ensures language is precise and clear, breaks down overly-complicated sentences into simpler ones where appropriate, and ensures that phrasing and word choice don’t disrupt the flow of the piece. A review of whether the argument is logical and cumulative is also conducted. The editor may request further clarification from the writer on specific terminology or suggest moving extraneous information to footnotes. This form of editing is time-intensive, as the editor must be aware of broad issues affecting the entire paper and revise it on a sentence level as well. It often requires a follow-up read-through to ensure meaning is preserved while necessary grammatical and stylistic corrections have been made.

Editor feedback looks like an annotated document with paragraph level and sentence-level changes made to the text, alongside explanatory comments and/or clarification requests for the writer’s review.

Copyediting

An edit focusing on language and internal consistency, without requiring major structural changes. For academic writing, this type of editing usually arises from the following situations: “I want to improve this conference paper/dissertation/thesis I’ve already reworked, and need some help polishing the writing for publication or my final submission,” or “This writing sample is due in three days; please help me make it better!”

The order of arguments is preserved, and no large-scale changes are suggested. Editing is conducted at the sentence-level to remove wordiness, improve clarity and check that the writing flows. Grammar, spelling, and punctuation are corrected. This level of editing includes a citation format check, a review of figure labels to ensure they match call-outs in text, and footnote/endnote review.

Editor feedback looks like an annotated document with sentence-level changes made to the text, alongside explanatory comments and/or clarification requests for the writer’s review. This form of editing often follows developmental or structural editing.

Proofreading

A final check on a text that is mostly clean and legible, with no major areas of ambiguity or revision required. This final pass catches any errors that may remain by allowing the editor to review the text as a reader, instead of actively reworking the document. The text can be checked against previous editing passes to ensure necessary corrections have been made. It can also be checked for adherence to style guidelines, such as Chicago Style, Turbian, MLA, or APA formats. Typographical errors and any lingering spelling or grammar mistakes will be corrected. Headings, references to other parts of the document, such as figures, tables, and hyperlinks (where applicable) are reviewed for correctness. Standardized English spelling formats, such as Canadian, British or American spellings, are ensured.  Proofreading can also involve reviewing final text layouts to correct formatting errors, such as orphaned paragraph headers, poorly arranged graphic elements, misplaced hyphens or page numbering mistakes. It ensures the final layout looks orderly, with consistently applied styles for paragraphs, headings and images.

Editor feedback looks like the final document, in its “send to print” layout if necessary, updated with necessary corrections.