Catalog of Services
The catalog below offers brief descriptions of the services I provide.
Prices for services are generally not listed because quotes are tailored to individual projects.
For an idea of the kinds of rates to expect, please see this article for academic editing
and this webpage for trade nonfiction and other genres.
Different services can be combined for an overall project fee.
Please contact me directly for a quote or a complimentary 30-minute initial consultation.
Prices for services are generally not listed because quotes are tailored to individual projects.
For an idea of the kinds of rates to expect, please see this article for academic editing
and this webpage for trade nonfiction and other genres.
Different services can be combined for an overall project fee.
Please contact me directly for a quote or a complimentary 30-minute initial consultation.
Substance
DEVELOPMENTAL EDITINGDevelopmental editing is the earliest stage at which you might hire a professional editor to do hands-on editing of your manuscript. At this point, you have a full draft of your manuscript, and you have a good idea of what you want the final manuscript to convey. The trouble, you find, is organizing your ideas and arguments in a way that makes the whole thing work.
As a developmental editor, I will read your draft thoroughly and help you organize it to match your goals. This typically involves reordering ideas and information, making cuts and suggesting expansions, pointing out areas in need of further evidence or clarification, and making sure that, overall, the contents you present track with what you lead your reader to expect. I offer edits and suggestions in two modes: direct changes to the text (with changes documented using Track Changes) and detailed comments using the Microsoft Word comment function. Whether I use one or both can depend on your preference and/or what I think conveys my suggestions most effectively. My edits will be accompanied by an editorial letter summarizing the changes made, offering global observations about the draft, and highlighting any changes that bear further comment or explanation. I work as a developmental editor in the following genres:
TARGETED DEVELOPMENTAL EDITINGIf you are on a small budget for developmental editing, have very specific needs in the editorial support you are looking for, or simply need a faster turnaround, a targeted developmental edit might be what you’re looking for. A targeted edit is tailored to specific concerns that you have about your manuscript, and I work within a small, set budget of hours that we agree on in advance. Like a regular developmental edit, I make direct changes to the text of your manuscript and make comments using the Microsoft Word comment function. But, to meet your constraints, I would focus on only the sections of the manuscript you want my help with, or only the specific issues you are having trouble with.
I offer targeted developmental editing in the following genres:
MANUSCRIPT EVALUATIONIf you are (a) someone who likes to receive comprehensive feedback on your writing in the form of a narrative text, and (b) a self-starter when it comes to revision and implementing broad-scope improvements in your writing projects, a manuscript evaluation might be the right service for you.
A manuscript evaluation is a big-picture assessment of your manuscript communicated in a detailed editorial letter. I read your entire book or article manuscript, assessing it for narrative effectiveness, argument cohesion, organizational persuasiveness, overall stylistic consistency and effect, and suitability for the intended readership, among other considerations. I then write you a detailed letter summarizing my assessment and laying out a constructive set of recommendations for turning your manuscript into a cohesive, compelling scholarly publication. The typical editorial letter I write is between 15 and 25 single-spaced pages for a book manuscript, and between 4 and 6 single-spaced pages for an article manuscript. The first half of the editorial letter addresses issues concerning the manuscript as a whole, while the second half addresses each chapter or section of the manuscript individually. In both parts of the letter, I offer in-depth, specific, and constructive advice for revision, emphasizing the manuscript’s strengths as well as areas needing improvement. If this service interests you, please email me for a quote and tell me about the topic of your manuscript and its total word count. Prices are tiered flat fees based on manuscript length. |
Polish
LINE EDITINGA line edit, sometimes also called a “stylistic edit,” is editing that focuses on improving the readability, smoothness, and tone of a manuscript. It is most appropriate when your manuscript is structurally in place and complete, and you are looking for help with making it flow as a reading experience. You might be especially interested in this service if you are nonnative English speaker. If so, line editing is appropriate when your manuscript is as polished as you can make it yourself, but you still want help with grammar, spelling, or word choice problems that you have a hard time sorting out on your own.
As a line editor, my goal is to make your manuscript read smoothly from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph. It is not a copyedit, which is about much stricter adherence to a particular style manual (e.g., the Chicago Manual of Style, or APA style). If you want both a line edit and a copyedit, you might be looking for a heavy copyedit. 
COPYEDITINGCopyediting is primarily concerned with (a) consistency across the manuscript and (b) adherence to the spelling, grammar, and formatting conventions of a particular style guide. This is the bulk of the copyeditor’s work: making sure that you spell, capitalize, and hyphenate the same words the same way each time; that titles of works, quotations, citations, headings, and footnotes are formatted consistently; that figures and tables and their captions are all styled the same way; and that the more mechanical aspects of punctuation (e.g., whether or not there is a period at the end of each bulleted list item, whether there is a comma before personal name suffixes like “Jr.” or “II”) comply with the rules of the chosen style manual.
Secondarily, some amount of line editing—dealing with the squishier issues of syntax, grammar, and word choice—often takes place as part of the copyediting process. See my editing samples for the different levels of line editing you can request as part of my copyediting services. Each copyediting project I complete comes with a customized style sheet.
Please note that what I offer is a professional two-pass copyedit. This means that, after editing your manuscript, I make a second pass over it to make sure that all my edits are consistent, that any queries (i.e., questions/comments addressed to you, the author) I made at the beginning are still relevant by the end, and that no errors have been accidentally introduced in the copyediting process. A cleanup edit is also available as part of the copyediting process if you are interested. A cleanup edit is a shorter "cleanup" pass over the manuscript that takes place after you have resolved any issues and approved my edits from the initial copyedit. It is intended to reconcile any changes or make any further edits that might be necessary after your revisions. It is a separate pass from the two-pass copyedit described above, which is a standard part of the initial copyedit. 
THESIS & DISSERTATION FORMATTINGBefore you formally submit your dissertation or master's thesis for your degree, you will likely need to format your manuscript according to your university's guidelines. This is essentially a process of self-publication according to the university's house style. My formatting services will help you format your manuscript—including front matter, back matter, figures, tables, footnotes, and anything else whose conformity is required—according to your university's rulebook and any other style manual you may be using.
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Author Development
ARGUMENT CLINIC
Have you ever wished that university campuses had writing centers dedicated to supporting faculty or doctoral student work? A place where you could make one-off appointments on an as-needed basis to get writing help or a sounding board suitable for the level of scholarly work you are doing? Or maybe you are an interdisciplinary scholar having a hard time finding appropriate feedback or support for your work?
If any of this sounds like you, consider signing up for an Argument Clinic session with me. I call this service “Argument Clinic” because tackling high-level narrative and structural issues with scholarly work is my specialty. If I were one of many coaches at this hypothetical writing center, I would be the person you would especially want to see if you had a question like “I feel pressure from my primary field to express my argument in this way, but the idea I have is really something else. How do I say it differently without alienating them?”; or “I feel like I have too many theoretical concepts I am using from the different fields I am combining. How do I figure out which ones I really need?”; or “I’m trying to apply a key theoretical concept from a particular field in an unusual way, and I’m having a hard time explaining what my approach is. How do I explain it in a way that makes sense?” During the appointment, I listen to you carefully as you explain the argumentation issue you are struggling with. I then help you analyze what might be going on and work with you to figure out constructive ways to deal with it. My help can be intellectual (e.g., discussing the meanings of concepts and talking through your perspective with you) or writing-based (e.g., helping you figure out a better narrative or structural approach to expressing your argument, or looking at a passage of your writing together to work on stylistic, mechanical, or phrasing issues you may be encountering when trying to capture your argument in writing). In short, you can think of an Argument Clinic session as specialized therapy for the argument you are trying to make. Whether you are struggling to construct your argument from your research findings, express it in a persuasive style, restructure the argument narrative in your manuscript, or get your argument to speak intelligibly to the right audiences, I am here to help.
You can sign up for an Argument Clinic appointment with me by downloading this form, filling it out, and sending it to me either in an email or via my website contact form. Like a walk-in clinic, I don’t read any materials in advance, although you are more than welcome to bring brief illustrative materials to the appointment that may help with our discussion. Scholars in any arts, humanities, or humanistic social science field are welcome. Interdisciplinary scholars are especially encouraged to sign up. I hold Argument Clinic sessions over Zoom from Sundays to Thursdays, between the hours of 10am and 6pm Pacific Time. Sessions are 60, 75, or 90 minutes long, and can typically be scheduled for the following week or later, depending on my availability. All appointments must be made in advance.
If any of this sounds like you, consider signing up for an Argument Clinic session with me. I call this service “Argument Clinic” because tackling high-level narrative and structural issues with scholarly work is my specialty. If I were one of many coaches at this hypothetical writing center, I would be the person you would especially want to see if you had a question like “I feel pressure from my primary field to express my argument in this way, but the idea I have is really something else. How do I say it differently without alienating them?”; or “I feel like I have too many theoretical concepts I am using from the different fields I am combining. How do I figure out which ones I really need?”; or “I’m trying to apply a key theoretical concept from a particular field in an unusual way, and I’m having a hard time explaining what my approach is. How do I explain it in a way that makes sense?” During the appointment, I listen to you carefully as you explain the argumentation issue you are struggling with. I then help you analyze what might be going on and work with you to figure out constructive ways to deal with it. My help can be intellectual (e.g., discussing the meanings of concepts and talking through your perspective with you) or writing-based (e.g., helping you figure out a better narrative or structural approach to expressing your argument, or looking at a passage of your writing together to work on stylistic, mechanical, or phrasing issues you may be encountering when trying to capture your argument in writing). In short, you can think of an Argument Clinic session as specialized therapy for the argument you are trying to make. Whether you are struggling to construct your argument from your research findings, express it in a persuasive style, restructure the argument narrative in your manuscript, or get your argument to speak intelligibly to the right audiences, I am here to help.
You can sign up for an Argument Clinic appointment with me by downloading this form, filling it out, and sending it to me either in an email or via my website contact form. Like a walk-in clinic, I don’t read any materials in advance, although you are more than welcome to bring brief illustrative materials to the appointment that may help with our discussion. Scholars in any arts, humanities, or humanistic social science field are welcome. Interdisciplinary scholars are especially encouraged to sign up. I hold Argument Clinic sessions over Zoom from Sundays to Thursdays, between the hours of 10am and 6pm Pacific Time. Sessions are 60, 75, or 90 minutes long, and can typically be scheduled for the following week or later, depending on my availability. All appointments must be made in advance.
WRITING COACHING
This is an ongoing coaching relationship where I work on argument and manuscript development with academic authors who are looking for ways to make their argument in a manuscript more cogent or persuasive, wanting skilled feedback on an especially tricky or complex argument structure, or otherwise experiencing problems with argument structure in a manuscript. Issues I frequently collaborate with writers on are narrative, theoretical, methodological, and analytical. Among the things I assist with are
I offer writing coaching in the academic humanities and social sciences on manuscripts ranging from journal articles to full-length books. I especially enjoy dealing with the difficulties of interdisciplinary communication, and welcome any writers who may be looking for high-level communication advice in tackling an interdisciplinary project. I typically hold coaching sessions over Zoom videoconferencing.
To inquire about my services as a writing coach, please contact me for a free 30-minute consultation. I want to understand your needs and give us the opportunity to see whether we would be a good fit for each other.
- structuring of narrative to express an argument cogently, creatively, and persuasively
- articulation of an original theoretical or analytical concept
- cohesion between theoretical and analytical frameworks
- connection of theory to methods or analytical evidence
- finetuning of analytical insights to bring out overarching theses
I offer writing coaching in the academic humanities and social sciences on manuscripts ranging from journal articles to full-length books. I especially enjoy dealing with the difficulties of interdisciplinary communication, and welcome any writers who may be looking for high-level communication advice in tackling an interdisciplinary project. I typically hold coaching sessions over Zoom videoconferencing.
To inquire about my services as a writing coach, please contact me for a free 30-minute consultation. I want to understand your needs and give us the opportunity to see whether we would be a good fit for each other.
MANUSCRIPT CONSULTATION (coming soon!)
*for article- and chapter-length manuscripts only
More affordable than a comprehensive developmental edit, a Live Manuscript Consultation could be the right service for you if you would like to receive feedback on your manuscript in a live Zoom meeting. For a flat rate based on manuscript length, I read your manuscript thoroughly in advance; assess it for argument coherence, narrative flow, organizational persuasiveness, or any other developmental issues you may wish to address; and give you constructive feedback in a 75-minute Zoom discussion. In addition to conveying my assessment, our conversation in the meeting can be flexible and tailored to your spontaneous interests and curiosities regarding your difficulties with the manuscript. I can work with you on structural, narrative, or intellectual issues, as well as issues of style, word choice, or other language- or audience-related concerns.
Although no written feedback will be provided on your manuscript in a Live Manuscript Consultation, the Zoom meeting will be recorded for your reference.
To sign up for a Live Manuscript Consultation with me, please download this form, fill it out, and send it to me in an email or via my website contact form. I can usually fit in a Live Manuscript Consultation within a month, and my available times for the Zoom meeting are Sundays to Thursdays, between the hours of 10am and 6pm Pacific Time. Please note that the Live Manuscript Consultation is only available for article- or chapter-length manuscripts. Besides journal articles, this could include essays in a collected volume or single chapters from a monograph.
Although no written feedback will be provided on your manuscript in a Live Manuscript Consultation, the Zoom meeting will be recorded for your reference.
To sign up for a Live Manuscript Consultation with me, please download this form, fill it out, and send it to me in an email or via my website contact form. I can usually fit in a Live Manuscript Consultation within a month, and my available times for the Zoom meeting are Sundays to Thursdays, between the hours of 10am and 6pm Pacific Time. Please note that the Live Manuscript Consultation is only available for article- or chapter-length manuscripts. Besides journal articles, this could include essays in a collected volume or single chapters from a monograph.