Editing services are of interest to academics, researchers, professionals, businesses, authors, and students, amongst others. On the Internet today, companies such as Proofessor.co.uk provide a high-quality editing and proofreading service and are readily available for all document types, ranging from translations to reports, e-books, and admissions essays. For technical or non-technical documents, as well as for researchers, students, and non-academic pieces of writing, these services have proven valuable, and demand for them is growing. In academic writing, in particular, recruiting a professional editor can offer great benefits to your work.
An editor can offer help and advice with technical and non-technical documents, being a strong editor requires a background in general English language editing, paired with a sizeable measure of talent and intuition. For example, the best editors have a “feel” for the intention or meaning of an author, and they understand what appears natural or unnatural on the page. Experienced and qualified editors are available on the Internet today, and many offer long-term opportunities. For this reason, you can use editors to assist with book publishing projects, journal article submissions, and PhD dissertations. At most writing-related service organisations, the difference between proofreading and editing services is that the latter are more comprehensive, though these details may vary from some providers out there.
Image: Working long-term with proofreaders and editors improves your academic writing
When an editor looks at your academic document to improve the quality of your writing, they focus on five core areas: (1) informal language, (2) verbosity (i.e., wordiness), (3) biased language, (4) plagiarism, and (5) readability and general editing. Regarding the use of informal language, maintaining an authoritative tone through the use of academic, formal words and phrases is desirable. In terms of wordiness, writing concisely is useful to meet word counts, and to ensure your point is not lost. Avoiding biased language is an ethical imperative, while plagiarism should be avoided to meet minimum requirements for publication or submission in reputable journals and universities. Finally, checks for readability and general editing, as performed in an editing service, are similar to proofreading services.
Image: Remember the keys to editing
To further examine the issue of avoiding “informal” language, consider the case of contractions (e.g., “I’m” rather than “I am”). In informal writing, such as an email to a friend, it would be natural to use contractions; however, in academic writing, the appearance of contractions, along with a chatty or impersonal tone (e.g., through the use of personal pronouns or the first person), can lead to the perception of informality. Even when a document – such as a scientific paper – is written in an accurate, precise, and informative way, the use of an unsuitable tone can undermine its credibility and its chances for publication. Focusing on improving your document’s concision, and removing the appearance of slang (or colloquial) language, can also be achieved consistently when using a professional editor.
Professional Proofreading Services 