Proofreading and Editing

Besides offering my academic writing services for essays, term papers, dissertations, and theses, I also offer proofreading and editing services for a draft written in English in any field or subject area.

Proofreading and editing services are often executed simultaneously; however, they may be regarded as two different activities. Consider the simple illustration to understand my point and decide which service you need:

As it may be evident to you that editing and proofreading are two closely related but different stages toward a final draft – done differently as well. Every writer needs a fresh pair of eyes after they have finished writing their first draft to proofread and edit it.

By definition, proofreading is almost always done at the final stage of writing to take out any typographical errors, punctuation issues, misspellings, and other inconsistencies such as irregularities in numeric order, etc. So, it’s basically fixing things at the surface-level. All else is probably good to go, or is it?

However, editing is a deep-level work: It involves fixing issues with the core writing such as sentence improvement for readability and understanding and adding acceptable level of clarity to the language. Thus, your professionally edited draft will offer better overall readability and skillfulness.

I have developed this table to further elaborate on these differences:

Proofreading

Editing
1. Done at the last stage of a written document. Continues side by side as the draft develops and finishes with the final document.
2. Fixes mechanical issues mostly Works to improve the core of your writing
3. Usually has a standard definition I offer two types of editing: general and research-based, the latter follows citation-style-based conventions.
4. Fixes mechanical inconsistencies such as typos, misspellings, grammatical, and punctuation errors. Fixes some formatting issues as well. Improves overall readability by making improvements at the sentence and paragraph levels to add overall professional feel.
5. Usually does not affect your overall word count of the draft that you’ve already written. Usually results in fewer words (or more if required).
6. Gives good writing a finishing touch and polishes the draft for final presentation. Aims at improving overall writing and draft.
7. Normally requires little collaboration with me. Usually, I need to collaborate with you to move one step at a time.
8. Shorter deadlines are okay. Turnaround time is a little longer because I need to do more work on your editing.

So, you may be wondering which of the two services you need to choose for your draft.

Simple. If your language skills (grammar, structure, and word choice) is good, you want to consult me only for surface-level error elimination: typos, misspellings, and punctuation issues.

Also you need only proofreading if your final draft has been edited and now needs a fresh pair of eyes (of a professional) before turning it in.

However, you will need to collaborate with me in editing your essay, thesis, or dissertation if you think it needs to have profound clarity, readability, and professional feel – overall. Thus, I would be working with you closely and moving on one step at a time.

Let me tell you something important here.

Some online professional services offer only proofreading services. Others offer both, proofreading and editing, as separate services. It’s because editing has built-in proofreading, but proofreading does not.

But, I am sure as you now understand the difference between the two activities, you might agree with me that at times one or both of these services may be needed.

Remember, proofreading is the final step that is usually ignored and so costs you a lot in writing quality.