An instructor at a private two year college, I teach, among other courses, English grammar
and composition. Over the last several years, I have edited hundreds of papers for students,
faculty and other staff. I have a master's degree and several graduate level courses beyond
that degree. I am familiar with academic writing, thesis writing and dissertation writing.
My editing and writing services don’t rely on the spell and grammar check in MS Word, or
any other word processing program. I have learned that those grammar checkers don’t
always “fit” what an author is trying to write. As I do for my students, I will read your document
and consider what you are trying to say and the audience to whom you want to say it. I make
comments within the document. If there is a problem other than a piece of punctuation or
misspelled word, I will frequently explain WHY I made a change. If I can think of another way
to express your thought, I will include my suggestion. You are, of course, free to accept or
delete my suggestions.
I strongly believe that I should maintain contact with an author. I would edit YOUR document.
I believe you should have some degree of input into what I do. Many editors take the
document and “disappear” until they send the document to you, with their bill. If the
document is large enough, I will send you a section of it, after I have edited it, so you can see
what I have done. If you have questions or don’t like my changes, that is the time to discuss
them, not AFTER I have edited the entire document.
If you wish, I will edit two or three pages of your document so you can see my style and how I
work.
My general rate is $2.10 per double-spaced page for an APA style dissertation or thesis and
$1.80 for other writing. I do adjust for pages with lots of charts or graphics that don't need
editing. I may be a bit higher than many others, but I will work with you more closely than
many editors, and I will review your document, or portions of it, once, after you have made
changes, if you wish. That is included in my price.
You may find others who will edit your document for less, but I doubt you will find many who
will work as closely with you as I will. You may find people who will be happy to edit your
manuscript for English problems, but how many of them will offer suggestions about how to
get your manuscript past your committee?
If you have any questions, or would like a quote for an editing project, please contact me.
I realize that many people who are reading this would like to hire an editor, but they are
learning that editing is more expensive than they expected. I am willing to offer you a
consulting fee of $40 per hour for specific questions.
You reacted negatively to that $40 per hour, right? Think about it again. If you can write a
succinct e-mail message with a question or two, I can probably respond and the entire
process might take me fifteen minutes. That would be a quarter hour, which would amount
to a $10 fee. Would it be worth $10 to have someone answer questions when you are
stuck? I would send you an invoice via PayPal.
I can’t always answer “I need it yesterday” questions, so you would need to plan ahead, or
ask questions that don’t need immediate answers. If I read your question and believe that
my answer will take more than 15 or 30 minutes, I will tell you and you can make a decision
at that point.
Do come back and visit my site. I am working on some ideas to help you write your paper. I
plan to sell a series of short essays that would cover a variety of topics. I have a "How To"
page that has a short article on "How to Use the Ruler" in a Word document. This may be
helpful to you. Feel free to use the information. It is possible that I might sell the article at
some point, but for now, the information is free. Let me know if this helps you.
If these "How To" pages prove to be helpful, I might add short essays on specific aspects of
English grammar for those who are not native speakers of English. I am planning on a short
article on how to create a Word generated Table of Contents. The topics would cover many of
the problems that I have seen when I edit academic papers. At this moment, I think these
items would cost about one or two dollars each, but that might change. If you like the idea, or
have suggestions for items you would like to purchase, let me know. I would, after all, like to
help you make your academic writing easier!
