Services

Developmental Editing

When you have a draft (no matter how drafty it is), I can help you address the “big picture” of your chapter, book, article, talk, grant application, proposal, or dissertation. I take a very thorough look at the text and give you feedback (usually both in the form of comments throughout and in an editorial summary) on things like a text's overall organization and flow, places where more detail, support, or elaboration is needed, the strength of the argument(s) and evidence, and the style. Often authors come to me when they have a talk or a dissertation chapter they’d like to turn into an article, a book manuscript (in whole or in part) that needs to be fleshed out more before submission to a publisher, or a grant application they’re trying to strengthen. Generally, I charge between $0.04-0.05/word for a developmental edit.

Line and Copyediting

A line editor looks at your piece at the paragraph and sentence level, addressing issues of clarity, conciseness, consistency, tone, flow, and point-of-view., while a copyeditor addresses the nitty-gritty mechanical stuff in the text, including use of language, syntax, grammar, and punctuation. Because a lot of the texts I work on (though not all) are written by authors whose first language is not English, I find that doing line and copyediting in the same round of edits works best to ensure the piece is fully comprehensible to an English-reading audience. I am happy to focus on one or the other, however, so rates will depend on the focus. Line editing typically costs between $0.04-0.045/word, while a “pure” copyedit would be between $0.03-0.04/word. A combined line and copyedit would typically cost around $0.055/word. Once the “big picture” items of your piece have been addressed and you’re ready to begin to refine it and prepare it for submission to a press, for example, reach out about line/copyediting and we can discuss your exact needs.

References / Works Cited / Bibliographic Work

Adhering to various style manuals’ many recommendations and guidelines can be a daunting task. If you’d like assistance with ensuring that all of your in-text citations, footnotes or endnotes, and bibliographic entries are correct, please reach out. There is, of course, a lot more to MLA, Chicago Manual of Style, APA, and AP formatting and style than reference work, too (e.g., headings and levels of text, paper formatting including specifications for appendices, tables of content, abstracts, and cover pages)! I can help with all of it. I usually charge a flat fee for this work, depending on the state and length of the manuscript, and what precisely needs to be done. (For example, to fix the reference section for a dissertation written in APA formatting, I recently charged $200.)

Proofreading

When you are ready to publish your piece, a publisher will typically provide or hire a proofreader for you. However, if you’re submitting your dissertation or thesis to the graduate school at your university, you might consider hiring a proofreader to ensure that your submission is polished and as near to perfect as it can be. You might consider hiring a proofreader before sending your proposal, grant, or manuscript off as well. When I’m in proofreader mode, I search for typos, misspellings, missing commas, weird spacing between words, and all the other little errors that were missed in the last few rounds of edits. I typically charge between $0.02-0.03/word for proofreading.

Indexing

An indexer creates a book's index. Not all books have indexes (or indices), but for nonfiction books or something like a poetry book (with a first-line index or a title index), the indexing happens at the very end of the publishing process. This is typically done during the penultimate proofreading stage (when an author is addressing minor things an editor has pointed out). The text will then (again, typically) go through one last round of proofreading, this time including the index, before being sent off for publication. I typically charge around $0.02/word for a nonfiction humanities/social sciences text.

The Fine Print

Don’t be afraid to reach out if you find yourself in a state of urgency! I am occasionally able to take on projects that must be completed in a short amount of time, and if I am not, I have a network of editors I could reach out to for you to find someone who could.

Otherwise, if you are preparing a manuscript and have a sense of when you’d need my help with it, I do appreciate the opportunity to “pencil you in” and plan on dedicating certain weeks to it. I also understand that priorities and deadlines (even those self-imposed ones) shift, and that life happens. We editors are used to these things, especially in academia, so just let me know—I don’t mind adjusting if need be.

Finally, turnaround time always depends on the manuscript. During our initial consultation (via video call or email), we will find what works best for both of us in terms of project parameters and expectations, pricing, and timeline. I will always do everything I can to return work to you by the promised deadline.

Generally speaking:

• For a proofread or copyedit of a book manuscript, I typically require two weeks.

• For a full developmental edit of a book manuscript, I typically require three to four weeks.

• Developmental edits for articles take generally around two weeks, while proofreading and copyediting them typically takes around one week.