Editorial services
What is it?
Substantive editing is a form of highly intensive editing, variously known also as ‘content editing’, ‘developmental editing’, ‘heavy editing’ or ‘structural editing’, although pedants will point out that there are subtle differences between these variants.
While simple and simply structured material is unlikely to benefit from substantive editing (or any of its variants), complex ideas, arguments or instructions will need some type of intensive editing. This service is most suitable for:
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Manuscripts that have not yet been submitted to a publisher.
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Manuscripts that will be resubmitted but have been drastically revised in the meantime.
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Material whose author is not as fluent in English as a native English speaker.
What does it include?
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Checking and improving the logical flow.
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Restructuring the argumentation, where necessary.
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Recasting ambiguous or otherwise problematic text.
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Improving clarity and coherence.
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Eliminating repetitiveness and wordiness.
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Reducing the overall word count, where necessary.
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Providing detailed guidance on writing (in the form of comments).
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Identifying and eliminating contradictions and factual inconsistencies.
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Plus extensive language editing, wherever necessary, to ensure not only that the English sounds natural, but also that the tone is appropriate for the target readership.
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Comprehensive language editing includes ensuring that grammar, spelling, punctuation, usage and vocabulary are in line with your preferred variant of English; i.e. British, American (US), Canadian or Australian.
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Free certificate of English editing: upon request, we will provide you with a customised document (PDF or JPEG) certifying that your work has been edited professionally for language, style, structure and coherence.
▶ See a sample of substantive editing.
▶ Click here to compare it to our other services.
How much does it cost?
Please check our rates for the Comprehensive Plus services.
What is it?
Basic editing that focuses on accuracy, consistency and, up to a point, clarity. This service is most suitable for:
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Fictional, academic, technical and non-technical documents (e.g. newspaper articles, TV scripts, short stories, popular science articles) written by authors as proficient in English as native speakers.
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Manuscripts that have already been through content editing, substantive or developmental editing.
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Material whose author is not as fluent in English as a native speaker.
What does it include?
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Eliminating jargon.
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Ensuring stylistic consistency.
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Ensuring that the style and tone are appropriate for the intended readership.
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Flagging problematic sentences for the author to recast.
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Formatting a manuscript in line with the publisher’s or author’s preferred style guide.
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Checking for (inadvertent) plagiarism.
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Plus basic language editing to ensure correct English grammar, spelling, punctuation and usage.
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Basic language editing includes ensuring that grammar, spelling, punctuation and usage are in line with your preferred variant of English; i.e. British, American (US), Canadian or Australian.
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Free certificate of English editing: upon request, we will provide you with a customised document (PDF or JPEG) certifying that your work has been edited professionally for language and style.
▶ See a sample of copy editing.
▶ Click here to compare it to our other services.
How much does it cost?
Please check our rates for the Basic Plus services.
Proofreading
What is it?
The proofreader will go through your manuscript with a fine-tooth comb to catch typos, omissions and slip-ups in layout, spelling and punctuation. Although such errors are often trivial, they may occasionally change the meaning of a sentence dramatically – and they always indicate sloppiness.
Proofreading is most suitable for fully edited documents: while it’s always advisable to check your work for errors, professional proofreading is not required until you’re ready to submit your final draft for publication.
What does it include?
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Checking spelling and punctuation, correcting errors and ensuring consistency with either British, American (US) or any other variant of English.
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Checking for consistency in the layout.
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Ensuring that illustrations and tables match their captions.
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Correcting minor grammar errors.
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Free certificate of proofreading: upon request, we will provide you with a customised document (PDF or JPEG) certifying that your work has been proofread professionally.
▶ See a sample of proofreading.
▶ Click here to compare it to our other services.
How much does it cost?
Please check our rates.
Express editing
What is it?
● Emergency editing – depending on availability – with a turnaround time of 48 hours to help you make that urgent deadline that came up faster than expected.
● Suitable only for documents of up to 3000 words in length (approximately 10 double-spaced A4 pages of text set to a 12-point font such as Arial or Times New Roman).
● You can send us a section of consecutive pages or a selection of non-consecutive pages from the same document. For example, if you have made last-minute changes to the first pages of your ‘Introduction’ and to a couple of pages in your concluding section, you might select only this set of pages for emergency editing.
How does it work?
You e-mail us your document with a link to your publisher’s guidelines (where applicable) and request Express editing.
Alternatively, you can fill in this form and upload your entire document.
We’ll let you know within the day whether a 48-hour turnaround time is possible. If it is, we’ll send you the invoice, which will need to be processed within 24 hours (i.e. to be payed or forwarded to your organisation’s accounts office), and we’ll begin working on your document immediately. If it isn’t, we will suggest an alternative.
What does it include?
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Checking and correcting spelling and punctuation, including consistency with either British, American (US) or any other variant of English spelling.
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Checking for consistency in the layout and style (e.g. headings, captions, emphasis).
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Formatting the text according to your publisher’s style guidelines.
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Formatting tables and figures according to the journal’s guidelines, where applicable.
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Correcting minor grammar errors and checking coherence.
▶ Click here to compare it to our other services.
What does it not include?
Express editing could be a lifesaver when, e.g., you decide to submit a proposal, job application or report just before the deadline or when you realise that you just have to rewrite a section of your article, but don’t have the time to check and format it as your publisher requires or to tidy up your letter to the peer reviewers. It may be just what you need when you’re in a rush; however, it is not a substitute for planned copy-editing or comprehensive editing. Express editing does depend on availability and does not include:
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Rephrasing and restructuring text, checking and improving the argumentation, reducing the word count.
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Comments, suggestions or an editor’s report.
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A certificate of editing or proofreading.
How much does it cost?
Please check our rates.
Writing check-up
What is it?
What it says on the tin: you submit a sample of your writing, about 700–1000 words in length; we scrutinise it, identify its weaknesses (if any) and you get back a report that highlights weak spots and alerts you to any problematic patterns of writing behaviour that we’ve detected.
Additionally, you can book an optional follow-up online tutorial. During your live one-to-one session, you’ll have the opportunity to troubleshoot any aspects of writing in academic English that bother you and discuss ways of resolving specific problems with writing for research.
Writing check-up: your options
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Report only: get feedback and guidance on your writing, in writing.
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Tutorial only: troubleshoot a sample of your work during a face-to-face online tutorial; identify problems with academic writing and get guidance on how to resolve them.
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Report + follow-up tutorial: your chance to discuss live and in depth any of the issues raised in our diagnostic report.
A writing check-up is not a substitute for either editing or proofreading: the purpose of the writing check-up is to help you become aware of aspects of your writing that give you trouble and need to be strengthened, perhaps because they place obstacles in the writing process or draw negative remarks from supervisors, editors or peer reviewers.
What does it include?
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Appraising the flow of the argumentation.
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Assessing the overall strength and clarity of arguments.
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Evaluating the clarity of the language.
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Assessing the overall consistency in style.
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Identifying potential weaknesses, such as
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Repetitiveness
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Shaky grammar
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Problematic usage
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Lack of citations
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Verbosity
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A concise report on which aspects of your writing are problematic.
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Guidance on how to improve your writing.
▶ Click here to compare it to our other services.
How much does it cost?
Please check our rates.
Manuscript evaluation
What is it?
A comprehensive check-up of a complete manuscript (e.g. article, book, research paper, thesis): you send us your manuscript, we troubleshoot the writing and you get back a report that flags up problems (if any) that may frustrate both you and your chances of getting your manuscript accepted for publication.
Additionally, you can book an optional follow-up online tutorial. During your live one-to-one session, you’ll have the opportunity to discuss any relevant aspect of your manuscript or of your writing more generally.
Manuscript evaluation: your options
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Report only: get feedback on your writing, in writing.
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Report + follow-up tutorial: your chance to discuss live and in depth any of the issues raised in our diagnostic report – or by a colleague, supervisor or peer reviewer.
The comprehensive check-up does not include either editing or proofreading, but we do read every manuscript beginning to end, line by line.
While some editors use AI to evaluate manuscripts, we guarantee that your manuscript will be read and assessed by a human being. You can find out in this article why we prefer to invest time in evaluating manuscripts, rather than letting AI do the job. We only use software to check for plagiarism.
If you’d like to find out more, this rather technical blog post explains in more detail the differences between editing and evaluating a manuscript.
What does it include?
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Assessing the structure of your work and how your material is organised.
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A comprehensive diagnostic report on your manuscript and how to resolve problems to do with clarity, English usage, structure and flow.
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Guidance on how to improve your writing.
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Additional option: feedback, guidance and Q&A in an intensive one-to-one online tutorial.
▶ Click here to compare it to our other services.
How much does it cost?
Please check our rates.
