English editing
Proofreading & editing for academic writing
One order, two passes. A subject-matched editor corrects the surface errors and then works on the sentences themselves — without touching what you meant.
What the editor actually does
“Proofreading” and “editing” are sold separately almost everywhere, which forces you to guess how broken your draft is. We do not think that guess is yours to make, so both passes are included in every order at one price.
Pass one — correctness
- Spelling, typographical errors and transposed words
- Punctuation, including the comma decisions that change meaning
- Subject–verb agreement, tense sequence and pronoun reference
- Articles, prepositions and countability — the errors that most often mark a text as non-native
- Number, unit, date and abbreviation conventions
- Capitalisation, italics and quotation conventions in your style
Pass two — clarity and style
- Sentences rebuilt when the grammar is legal but the logic is hard to follow
- Nominalisations and stacked noun phrases unpacked into verbs
- Hedging calibrated: strong enough to claim, careful enough to survive review
- Paragraph openings that signal what the paragraph is for
- Terminology held constant once you have chosen a term
- Repetition, filler and throat-clearing removed
What the editor will not do
Your editor does not invent findings, soften a result, add citations, or rewrite an argument into one you did not make. Where a sentence could mean two things, they leave a comment asking which you meant instead of choosing for you. Restructuring the argument itself is developmental editing and is quoted separately.
At a glance
- From
- USD 20 / 1,000 words
- Return time
- 12 hours to 7 days
- Service levels
- One or two editors
- File types
- .docx .doc .rtf .odt .tex .pdf
- English
- UK, US, CA, AU
- Revisions
- Free for 14 days
What comes back to you
Clean copy
Every change applied, formatting intact, ready to submit or to keep working in. No markup to accept, nothing left to tidy.
Tracked copy
The same document with every edit visible, so you can see what changed and reject anything you disagree with. Comments carry the editor's queries.
Editor's report
A short summary of the recurring issues, the decisions taken on style, anything the editor could not resolve, and what to watch for in your next draft.
One editor or two
A single editor is right for most work and is what most authors choose. The advanced service adds a second senior editor who reads the whole document again after the first edit, including the first editor's own changes.
Two people catch different things. The second editor settles inconsistencies the first one introduced, questions changes that went too far, and reads the manuscript the way a reviewer will — cold.
Worth it when: the manuscript is going to a competitive journal or a university press, the stakes are a funding decision or a viva, or English is not your first language and you want a second reading before submission.
Working in your file format
Microsoft Word
Edited with Track Changes in your own file. Styles, cross-references, captions, equations and reference-manager fields are left working.
LaTeX & Overleaf
We edit the .tex source directly and return a diff-friendly file. Markup, environments, labels and citation commands are preserved. Send a zipped project or an Overleaf link.
Returned as a commented PDF with the correction written out at each point, so you can apply the changes in whatever produced the file.
Questions authors ask about this service
Do you edit the reference list?
We check the reference list for internal consistency and for agreement with your in-text citations, and we flag entries that are incomplete. Converting a whole list from one style to another is charged separately because it is slow, mechanical work — ask for a quote and we will tell you how long it will take.
Will the editor know my subject?
We assign by field. If you enter your topic on the order form we match an editor who has worked in that area; if we do not have a good match we say so before you pay rather than assigning someone approximate.
Can I keep some sections untouched?
Yes. Say so in the order notes — for example a quoted passage, a published abstract, a co-author's section, or text you must not alter for legal reasons — and the editor will leave it as it stands.
What if my word count is wrong?
We check the count when the file arrives. If it differs materially we contact you with the corrected price before starting, and you can cancel with no charge.
Read the marks before you buy
Send any 500 words from your draft. We return them edited, with tracked changes, within one working day — no card, no account.