Services

How does it work?

I ask for all work to come to me as Word files. This allows me to use the ‘Track Changes’ facility to highlight all of my suggested changes, which will appear in red. You will be able to see at a glance everything that I’ve done and check whether you’re happy with it.

On completion of the work, I send you this ‘marked-up’ version and a ‘clean’ version, in which all of my changes have been inputted. Any queries and concerns I have during the proofreading process are flagged up in Comments Boxes, which display in the right margin, and are resolved before I invoice you.

Levels of editing

There is, of course, enormous variety in the quality of people’s writing and, therefore, the amount of work that needs to go into correcting it. For that reason, I have three levels of editing, with the cost calculated according to what level you require. See Pricing (below) for the cost of these.

Light edit: This is for generally well written scripts which need just a simple proofreading to check for any errors of grammar, spelling and punctuation.

Moderate edit: For scripts which also require attention to be given to issues of clarity, consistency, flow and coherence. Changes to word order and sentence structure, removal of repetition, and adjustments to ensure an appropriate writing style might also be needed.

Substantial edit: For poorly written scripts which require a strong edit in order to ensure they are understandable and ‘readable’. Some of the material may need to be rewritten. If you speak English as a second or third language or have dyslexia, it is likely you will require this level of editing.

What I don’t do

I don’t address formatting issues. I will, however, point out anything obvious that I come across whilst proofreading, such as inconsistency in the presentation of headings, changes of font, irregularity in the giving of captions, and so on.

I am not a referencer: this is a separate skill. However, I do check in-text citations and the References list for presentation and spelling.