Monthly Archives: July 2016

Stack of dictionaries

Choose Wisely: How to Select a Good Academic Editing Service

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You’ve spent hours on researching and writing that dissertation or journal article. But all that effort is wasted if there are typos, misspellings, and punctuation mistakes, and it’s even worse if you haven’t made your point quite clear or defended your thesis fully.

There’s only one thing left to do: Find a good academic editing service.

Out of the thousands of results, which one should you choose?

First thing’s first. We think it’s better to use a company than to have a friend or family member edit your work.

We’re not trying to knock having someone do the editing on an informal basis, because there are many amazing individuals out there who can add value to your project. However, if your work needs anything beyond a cursory check for spelling and grammatical mistakes, an academic editing service may be a better option for you. A reputable service will have vetted the editors for you in advance and can guarantee a certain level of expertise and quality. Plus, you know you’ll have follow-up support if you need it.

In addition, high-quality academic editing services can offer rush delivery and quick turnaround times if your deadline is looming. Established editing services also have the flexibility to handle payments through several channels, and can provide instant quotes.

Once you’ve got a list of academic editing providers that appeals to you, it’s time to narrow them down. First, of course, it’s important to pick a service that falls within your budget.

But you should also look deeper.

Look for firms that clearly highlight having had years of experience in editing and proofreading, and specifically in academic work, since this is a very specialized type of editing. Since you’ll have done all the technical and content legwork they don’t need to have extensive knowledge about your subject, but they definitely need to be well-versed in academic standards and conventions.

For academic editors, it’s also important that they’re experienced with the style manuals and citation styles (APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago/Turabian, etc.) your school or discipline follows. If the academic editor also offers formatting, that’s a plus.

A great academic editing service should give you the level of service you need to get the language and formatting up to academic/publishing standards. (Full disclosure: Some companies only offer a basic spelling and grammar check, but not checks for style, consistency, flow, clarity of argument, and so on. We here at Stickler, on the other hand, are pleased to offer all of this—and more—as part of our core service.)

Last but not least, the firm you choose should be personable. This isn’t always a priority for people looking to have their papers edited and proofread online, but it’s important to feel comfortable with the firm that is providing you with this service. They’ll be more likely to understand your needs and the parameters of your project, and you’ll feel more comfortable asking for exactly what you want. A good editor should suggest edits and track changes, and an even better one will take the time to identify areas that are in need of further development, additional source material for credibility purposes, and so on.

You’ve finished that final draft. What are you waiting for? Contact an academic editor today and take that next step.

Five “Bendable” Grammar Rules to Reconsider

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It’s our job to offer academic editing services at Stickler, and we love it. We know how hard it is to proofread your own work, and how difficult it is to remember all those grammar rules you learned at school.

But did you know that some of those rules your dreaded 8th grade English teacher taught you aren’t so cut and dry?

Here are five “bendable” rules that you shouldn’t sweat.

1. “You should never split infinitives.”

Before you break into a cold sweat, just remember that an infinitive is a verb with “to” at the beginning: “to go,” for example. Many teachers say that you should never separate the “to” and the verb. So how did the writers of Star Trek get away with saying “to boldly go where no man has gone before”?

Apparently, this rule is the result of Classics teachers who loved Latin so much, they decided to impose certain Latin grammar rules onto English language. In Latin, an infinitive is a single word that can’t be split. Clearly, this isn’t the case in English, where the one-word infinitive (such as “go”) is simply accompanied by “to.”

2. “You should use ‘who’ as a pronoun when talking about a person, not ‘that.’”

Is it “Arya Stark is a girl who has no name” or “Arya Stark is a girl that has no name”?

Apparently, it can be both. Grammar Girl has done the dirty work of checking the major style guides, such as Fowler’s Modern English Usage and The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage. These style guides agree that, for the most part, both “who” and “that” are acceptable, and this is more a matter of style.

3. “It’s ‘slowly’ and ‘quickly,’ not ‘slow’ and ‘quick.’”

Words like “slow” and “quick” are what are known as flat adverbs. “He walks slow” and “He walks slowly” mean the same thing. They function like adverbs without -ly on the end.

They used to be much more common than they are now, and the list of common flat adverbs includes flat, sharp, close, and clean. A word of caution, though: while some flat adverbs are interchangeable, others are not. “He works hard” and “He hardly works” definitely don’t mean the same thing.

4. “Never end a sentence with a preposition.”

Those pesky Latinists strike again. In Latin, sentences cannot end with a preposition, but it’s quite normal in a Germanic language like English. Sticking to this rule can cause you to write horribly convoluted, Yoda-like sentences. Ending sentences with prepositions isn’t something you should be particularly worried about. (Or would you rather I said, “Ending sentences with prepositions isn’t something about which you should be particularly worried”?)

5. “You cannot use ‘and’ or ‘but’ at the beginning of a sentence.” 

Apparently, no one’s ever been able to find the ancient text to support this rule. But as we all heard (gleefully, I could say) in Finding Forrester, teachers continue to drill this rule into their students’ brains. And then those students correct others for doing so. Or they become teachers who teach this rule to their students. And so on.

As the above paragraph demonstrates, using “and” or “but” or any other conjunction to begin a sentence is fine.

 

So, stop wasting your time going through your writing with a fine-tooth comb editing out these types of mistakes, especially if you’ll have to write longer, awkwardly constructed sentences to “correct” them!