Editing for Academics

Capstone Editing is in the unique position to offer academics a specialised editing service that fully meets their particular needs.

True specialists in academic editing

As Australia’s only academic editing business owned and operated by an academic, Capstone Editing is uniquely positioned to provide a copyediting service that meets the specific needs of academics.

Dr Lines understands how essential a strong record of publication is to an academic’s career at all levels, tied as this is to funding, performance reviews and promotion. To provide the best possible service to our academic clients, our editors are qualified academics with extensive experience in writing and publishing for their own academic careers and editing documents for other academics.

All our editors have received further training from our Director and Head Editor, Dr Lisa Lines, to sharpen their already considerable skills in academic editing. This ensures that they are among the finest and most highly skilled academic editors in the industry.

Insider Knowledge

We know that many academics have to pay for professional editing themselves, even though they require it to perform their job and it should rightly be paid for by their university. To assist, Capstone Editing has partnered with two after-pay services. Through Payright and Humm, we have interest-free repayment plans available so that you can get published (and maybe get that promotion!) now, and pay for your editing over a period of up to 12 months.

The value of editing

Every document, regardless of its quality, will benefit from academic editing.

Our service will ensure your research is presented in the best possible light and will provide you with the greatest chance of publication or funding success. In addition to word-perfect editing for maximum readability, Capstone Editing ensures that all language, style, formatting and referencing guidelines applicable to your document are meticulously followed.

This means, regardless of whether you are seeking professional editing or proofreading for a journal article, book manuscript, book proposal, book chapter, conference paper, grant proposal or application for promotion, Capstone Editing will ensure your edited document meets international publication standards in terms of both language and presentation.

Lisa Lines addressing her employees in the office boardroom

Premium Copyediting Service

Under our Premium Copyediting service, we will perform an extremely thorough edit of your document. This includes:

Correct grammar, syntax, spelling and punctuation (according to British/Australian or US English conventions)
Correct use of formal academic English
Improved logic, clarity and flow, including transitional phrasing

Complete internal consistency
Correct and consistent use of abbreviations
Suggestions on organisation, structure and support of statements

Querying of errors and inconsistencies in content
Word count reduction (through eliminating redundancy and unnecessary repetition)
Complete formatting
Complete, consistent and accurate referencing.

In addition, you will receive:

A detailed letter from your editor
A style sheet detailing all choices made in terms of hyphenation, capitalisation, spelling and so on, to help you maintain the consistency of your document should you make any further changes.

Substantive Editing Service

In addition to the Premium Copyediting service detailed above, academics looking for greater assistance can benefit from our Substantive Editing service.

What is substantive editing?

IPEd’s Australian Standards for Editing Practice define substantive editing as ‘editing to assess and shape material to improve its organisation and content, to clarify meaning, improve flow and smooth language, ensuring that language use is appropriate to the nature of the material and its audience’.

Substantive editing also includes structural editing, which ‘focuses on the organisation of material and the types of elements included to clarify meaning and improve flow’.

What’s included?

Capstone Editing’s Substantive Editing service includes all the aspects of Premium Copyediting, as well as editing for:

Technical vocabulary
Improvement of organisation and structure, or detailed advice where author input is needed (rather than general suggestions only)
Changing from one referencing system to another, if necessary, and the location of any source details that may be missing from your reference list

Extensive rewording, if necessary
Identification of statements that need additional support, with detailed advice
Refinement of your Abstract, if necessary
A second edit or proofread of your work by a new editor, if necessary (for an additional charge).

Who is this service for?

Clients who choose to use our Substantive Editing service may include:

Early career academics
Those who have constructed their journal article, conference paper or other document from previously written work

Academics from a non-native English-speaking background
Those seeking to convert their thesis into a book for publication

Our Substantive Editing service level is only offered to academic or professional clients (not students), in accordance with the Australian Standards for Editing Practice. If you have any questions, please contact us.

0% interest finance options available

Capstone Editing is proud to be the only editing service in Australia to offer an after-pay service to our clients. Access top-quality editing when you need it, and pay for it over time in manageable instalments.

Spread the cost

Pay an up-front deposit today and pay the rest in convenient fortnightly or monthly instalments over a period of up to 12 months.

Interest free

Always interest free, no early exit fees and no hidden fees and charges.

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Easy application

Apply online for either instant approval or a decision within a few hours (depending on the provider you choose).

Don’t wait! Submit your document for editing now and pay later with a flexible payment plan that suits your individual needs.

Find out more

Finance provided by Payright and Humm

Capstone Editing has chosen to partner with Payright (Devizo Pty Ltd ABN 24 605 753 535) and Humm (Certegy Ezi-Pay Pty Ltd ABN 28 129 228 986) because they are Australian businesses that practise responsible lending.

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A holistic and comprehensive edit

Our service stands out, not only for being the highest-quality service in Australia, but also for offering the most comprehensive copyediting available, tailored to meet the needs of academic writers. We go far beyond the sentence level, to address issues of logic and clarity in your text, and to ensure internal consistency.

Moreover, if necessary, we can provide suggestions regarding reducing the word count of your document. As part of our Premium Copyediting service, we will also offer suggestions on how you can further improve your document’s organisation and structure, as well as the degree to which statements are supported.

Student and lecturer chat outside university

Special inclusions for academics

If we identify any errors or inconsistencies in the content, we will draw your attention to those. We also develop a style sheet during the edit of your document, so that you can see all decisions made regarding language style and format.

This sheet can be used when making further changes to your document to ensure its perfect internal consistency is maintained.

Our specialist academic editors are experts across diverse fields. They have a wealth of experience in editing academic documents of all kinds, including journal articles, research and scientific papers, nonfiction book manuscripts and book chapters, book proposals, textbooks, conference papers, grant proposals and grant and funding applications, academic job applications and applications for promotion.

Our Reputation

We are proud of our reputation as the highest-quality academic editing service available. Testimonials from our past clients and the examples of our editing we provide here demonstrate the quality of our work.

Editing examples

These documents provide representative examples of our work for past clients.

Testimonials

I would like to thank Lisa for her thorough edit of my grant proposal. Her suggestions gave me better ways of expressing myself with clarity and (importantly for grant proposals) with fewer words! She provided detailed comments on her edits that helped ensure that we didn’t inadvertently change the intended meaning. I appreciated her attention to the details of formatting and nuances of meaning across the document. I highly recommend her to help improve the readability and clarity of academic documents.

Dr Monica Barratt NHMRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow University of New South Wales

Lisa has edited several journal articles for me. Her thorough command of language really helps in making sure that the article is well expressed and free of errors. Lisa works very quickly and I have found it invaluable to have somebody format an article to the style of the particular journal. It is a massive time saver that allows me to move on to my next piece of work. I plan to use Lisa’s services again, including for a book project I have coming up. I highly recommend her to academics wanting to save time and wanting to submit their work with the confidence that it has been thoroughly looked over and formatted to their particular requirements.

Associate Professor Dominic O'Sullivan Political Science Charles Stuart University

The fast, elegant and professional service provided by Dr Lines and her team saved me hours, days and weeks of work for which I am truly grateful. They worked to very tight deadlines and formatted, fixed and corrected my thesis so that I could submit it on time (and within my budget!) The editors who edited my thesis had phenomenal attention to detail and provided me with tremendously valuable feedback that improved the quality of my thesis. In addition to the usual material, my thesis had dozens of tables in both portrait and landscape format, a research study and case studies. My editors very quickly corrected and fixed all the material I threw at them and went beyond the call of duty to provide me with a beautifully referenced and immaculately formatted thesis. I am so appreciative of their advice and assistance.

Cheryl-Anne Whitlock Master of Arts (Journalism) University of Wollongong

Capstone Editing’s simple order process provides easy access to professional academic editing. In most cases, universities cover the cost of editing for their academic staff and we can invoice them directly.

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