thesis & academic paper editing

Sarah Endacott can help you improve your journal article, thesis, academic research paper or grant submission. All work is performed within university policies on acceptable editorial input, which limits collaboration. The editor cannot perform research or add content; but can polish the text and improve flow.

Most people who ask for editing of their academic work say “I just want it cleaned up”, but editing comprises many more tasks than they imagined. Academics are expected to have a very high level of English proficiency, but they have often overlooked this area of their expertise. The editor is skilled in working with text to achieve publishable work, and can lift the standard of your writing by as much as a grade.

how long does it take?

Writing a thesis is akin to writing a book. It must be edited, polished and laid out ready for printing. In industry, this can take up to one year after the text is approved for publication, and these tasks are often separated and even duplicated to achieve an acceptable result. Some academics are disappointed that an editor cannot agree to a very short deadline to fit in with their scholarship, tenure, university year, submission date or deadline. They may have high expectations that an editor can thoroughly polish their 100,000 word paper in less than a week — even though it took them seven years to write it! The motivation is often trying to avoid having to pay fees for an additional term for the extension because the deadline looms, but such poor time management usually reflects poor research and writing.

Academics must allow the editor at least five working days to edit long theses such as masters or PhDs, after which the writer will need at least a week or two to go over the corrections and address issues raised. They should allow another week on top of that for other matters such as supervisor approval, and then more days after the manuscript is submitted to the faculty printer and binder. Shorter papers still take time to assess and edit, and the editor does like to have some weekends off each year.

If you come to an editor asking for a quick turnaround for your thesis, they will immediately know that you have left it too late. These people invariably say “I'm over it!” or “I just want it gone!” This is a poor attitude to go into industry or further study with. Such theses are almost never passed. The editor might have barely enough time to correct spelling mistakes, let alone do all the other necessary work.

Scholars who prepare a well-planned, fair timeline for themselves, their supervisor and their editor pass in the first round.

areas of expertise

Sarah Endacott has worked on theses, research papers, grant submissions and other texts in these fields:

marketing	volunteering
tourism	international studies
women’s studies	practice guides for laws and regulations
economics	art & culture
accountancy	water management
nursing	developing economies
business & family business	student evaluation
leadership	workplace spirituality
financial planning	international port privatisation
environmental reporting	brand management
information management	industrial relation
criminal justice	asbestos management
primary & acute health care	rapidly emerging markets
human resources	school choice selection
Indigenous issues	job mobility
inter-country adoption	science & technology
fostering	food safety
disabilities and aged care	community, government &
	NGO sectors

how much does it cost?

Sarah Endacott can only give a quote after you send a sample of work (or preferably the whole), an accurate word count (including text boxes, footnotes and references), an indication of whether the work includes non-text material such as figures or other material, as well as a firm deadline for both delivery of draft text and reception of edited work.

thesis & academic paper editing

how long does it take?

areas of expertise

how much does it cost?

areas for improvement