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 Oxipay, 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.
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
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 work to reduce 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.
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.