Style Editing

We are experts in APA style, as codified in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (sixth edition). We are also familiar with Chicago, MLA, Turabian, and OSCOLA styles, among others, as well as with the Harvard and Vancouver systems of referencing. If you know what journal you are targeting, you only have to give us the name and we will locate the journal's instructions for authors on their website and ensure your paper conforms to their house style.

We provide three levels of service:

1) Standard Service: 2 passes by 1 editor
Our standard service involves two readings of your document. The first pass may involve heavy editing to make the text fluent. During the second pass, the editor will check for any remaining errors.

2) Advanced Service: 3 passes by 2 editors
When there are a lot of mistakes or problems with grammar, two passes may not be enough to ensure that the style of a document is suitable for publication. We therefore also offer an advanced service that involves three passes by two editors. In addition to the standard service described above, this will involve a third pass by a second editor. After this service, if your paper is rejected by a journal because of problems with the English, we will refund you 50% of the cost (providing that no substantive changes were made after we returned the paper to you). 


After both the standard and advanced services, we cannot guarantee that your document will be completely free of errors. But if you find many mistakes and are not satisfied with the work, you can send the document back to us for another look. If we agree that there are a substantial number of errors, or if we feel the errors are serious ones, we will read through up to 10,000 words of a document again free of charge, or alternatively offer a significant discount.

3) Budget Service: 1 pass by 1 editor
The editor will edit the text heavily if necessary to make it fluent, but there will be no second pass. This means it is likely that errors will remain. This level of service is recommended only for those on a tight budget who cannot afford the standard service. If a client is not satisfied with the work, we will not read the document again or give a discount.

Procedure

Stage 1
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Send us your work by email. Include details of any particular style you would like us to adhere to. If no particular style is stated, we will edit according to the predominant style.
Stage 2
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We will make improvements to and comments on your text using Microsoft Word's Track Changes and Comments tools. Track Changes will enable you to see all the changes we have made to your text, while the comments we insert in the margin will provide extra information to improve your work.
Stage 3
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We return your work to you with our comments and changes, and you can then "accept" or "reject" them as you see fit using Track Changes.

Most of our clients send us Microsoft Word documents. If we are sent work in a different file format, such as a PDF file, we will convert it into a Word file. The turnaround time for an editing request will depend on a number of factors: how many words the document has, how well written it is, the level of service required, and how urgently you need it to be completed. A typical turnaround time is 3 working days (Monday to Saturday) for an average-length paper of 7000 words.

After we have returned the document, we can provide a free editing certificate if needed (see an example here).

We are experienced in editing many different kinds of academic material, including journal papers, reports, theses and dissertations, presentations, proposals, personal statements, references, letters, and CVs. We have also been commissioned to edit website text, advertising copy, and other business-related material.