Choosing an Academic Editor: What to Look For
- Melchior Antoine
- Apr 12
- 8 min read
Academic editors are often a vital part of the publishing process for several students and academics. It is needed by a wide range of clientele. This includes students writing their master’s or dissertation theses or scholars who wish to publish in academic journals.
As with many other professions, there are a wide variety of academic editing professionals to choose from. So, how do you even go about making the right choice? What factors should you consider when choosing an academic editor for your project?
Well, first, we need to acknowledge that there are two major ways to acquire academic editing services. You can rely on 1. An online academic editing agency or you can hire 2. A personal academic editor.
Now this is not always clear-cut. There are entities that fall between these two categories. But for the purpose of this article, we will stick to these two main divisions.
I'm Melchior Antoine, but you can call me Mel. I have been a professional editor for about seven years, and during that time, I have edited over five million words!
This has taught me a lot about what students and scholars require of their editor. In this article, I go in-depth on how to hire a personal academic editor and compare it to hiring an academic editing agency or company. I also explain how I operate personally as an academic editor and the benefits of working with me.
What is an academic editor?
An academic editor is simply someone who revises and corrects manuscripts related to academic topics. Academic topics cover a range of industries and professions. There are the obvious academic areas related to university. Let’s list them:
Students writing their master’s thesis
Students writing their doctoral dissertation
Professors looking to publish in academic journals
In addition to universities, there are book authors. Authors who wish to publish books on academic topics but a target audience of the general public might need an academic editor. This is also true of textbooks. Authors might need academic editors to revise and correct books meant to be used as textbooks in the classroom.
I will try to list the different types of book editing projects that you should expect from an academic editor:
Book chapters in academic books
Textbooks meant for university
Special book editions published by journals
Books written by academics meant for the public
So what exactly is the job of the editor? Well, it depends entirely on the needs of the author seeking editing. There are authors who may simply need a light proofread. There are others who need their entire text to be restructured. Taking that into account, we can break down editing into various stages.
In all, there are three major stages of editing: 1. Developmental Editing; 2. Copyediting; and 3. Proofreading.
Developmental editing focuses on big picture issues and may not necessarily involve editing the content. On the other hand, copyediting means directly correcting text in your manuscript. Lastly, proofreading refers to the final stages of copyediting before publishing your manuscript.
Copyediting and proofreading can properly be described as manuscript editing. It involves directly reviewing and correcting the content of a manuscript.
This is in contrast to developmental editing — a more drastic form of correction and review. It involves the written work being wholly reorganized or rewritten. Below, we go in depth to discuss each type of editor and what they do.
1. The developmental editor
A developmental editor comes in at the very first stage of editing — even before the academic manuscript is completed. It could include your paper proposal or the rough draft.
The developmental editor helps to revise and organize your draft extensively. However, this may not even involve direct changes to your manuscript. It could mean comments on sections that should be left out, added, or shifted.
Here is a list of tasks that a developmental editor is responsible for:
Helping the author conceive the idea for paper or book
Helping the author plan the overall structure of the work
Assisting the author in drafting an outline
Coaching authors in writing each individual chapter
If you are a master’s or PhD student, your thesis advisor is more or less your developmental editor. They give you advice on how to improve the manuscript for your thesis or dissertation, such as adding new citations, shifting material from one chapter to next, or extending the introduction. And the good thing is that their services are free!
However, for more mature professionals, the developmental editor typically comes at a higher cost than a copyeditor. They will help you in reconceptualizing the structure for your book. For example, if you are tasked with writing a book chapter that is supposed to be 5000 words and your current draft is 10,000 words, their job is the painful task of telling you what ought to be cut out.
Their services are essential in that regard. You would not want a situation where you have to go back and restructure or rewrite huge parts of your manuscript. The developmental editor helps provide a certain level of guidance and security against such an outcome.
2. The copyeditor
The copyeditor provides manuscript editing. This means they review and correct the text in a completed manuscript. The job of the copyeditor usually involves:
Revising to ensure consistency in style
Revising and rewriting to remove ambiguity
Reorganizing sections that are lacking in unity
As can be seen from this list, copyediting involves big changes and adjustments. For extensive copyediting, you should make sure that you are on the same page with your copyeditor.
Most academic copyeditors work with Word Track Changes. This feature in Word allows you to trace all the corrections made in the document. It also gives you the ability to reject and accept these changes.
Our copy editing prices can begin as low as $0.02 per word. Get in touch with Mel today |
3. The proofreader
The proofreader corrects your manuscript just before publication. In the publishing industry, proofreading means combing for errors in the final ready-to-publish version of the manuscript.
This refers to the format in which the manuscript will be published. The copyeditor, by then, has done most of the work of correcting the text in the manuscript. The job now is to find small errors that may have been missed. This includes the following:
Correcting spelling errors
Correcting word breaks
Correcting typeface and font errors
Doublechecking page numbers and running heads
Checking illustrations and tables
Proofreading for coherent meaning and sense
In short, these are the final touches to your manuscript before publication. Now, you should bear in mind one thing: the boundaries between the various stages of editing are not always clear.
There may be instances that in the middle of proofreading, your academic editor realizes that you need to make a major structural change. Manuscript editing does not simply begin and end with scrutinizing and correcting the author’s text. It involves a process of clear communication. As the author, you are directly responsible for setting clear guidelines of what to expect from your editor.
What to look for in an editor
First and foremost, you should find an editor with the experience in editing. For example, I have edited over five million words. That’s a lot of experience. Some people may even go so far as saying that you should hire a subject matter expert?
What does that mean? It means hiring someone with expertise in the subject that you are writing on. For example, if your topic is on agriculture, then you should get an academic editor with a background in agriculture.
If your manuscript topic is on health, you should get an academic editor with expertise in healthcare. That sounds logical, doesn’t it? But it really is not. Most subject matter experts are neither good writers nor editors.
So, it is doubtful that your manuscript would benefit from their changes. Also, considering average editing prices, it would not make sense to hire a highly paid professional for a task like editing. There are few doctors who would take a break from medical practice to edit your paper at a price you are willing to pay.
In short, your choice of a professional editor should be based on technical editing skill. An academic editor should have a way with words. The main task or skill of an editor should be the ability to recognize what you have to say and make sure you say it as well as possible.
Here are a few things to look for, when it comes to hiring an academic editor:
They should have years of experience
They should have testimonials
They should be willing to have a face-to-face introductory call
They should have samples at hand
They should have a website
You should always make sure that you are on the same page with your academic editor. You want a professional who respects the vision of your work, while being competent enough to make the necessary revisions and changes to your manuscript. You do not want an editor who goes too far in the changes that they carry out, essentially making the work theirs and not yours. In that regard, proper communication is key.
Personal editor versus agency editor
Now, I just mentioned communication and its importance in the client-editor relationship. This should be considered when choosing between an editing company and a professional editor. What's the difference? Let's take a quick look.
An agency or company has several hundred editors at its disposal. However, tehse editors are not allowed to communicate with you. They mostly do a good job. They are highly trained and professional. Also, the prices you have to pay these companies may be the same as those of a personal editor.
However, a personal relationship with your editor comes with several advantages that you don't get with working with a proofreading company. You can have direct communication with your editor which allows clarity on issues in your text that may be lost in writing.
A personal editor may also have a better idea of your style than an agency. In short, having a personal editor brings more human warmth to the relationship and process.
The benefits of hiring an editor
There are many advantages to hiring a professional copyeditor at any stage of the editing process. But it all boils down to three things:
Distance
Saves time and money
Makes you a better writer
1. They have distance. Hiring an editor brings objectivity to your manuscript. There are only a few authors who can be objective in how they view their work. A professional editor does not have the emotional attachment that you have to your own work. This means they can do the ruthless job of cutting what needs to be cut, which you cannot bring yourself to do.
2. An editor saves time and money. A professional editor saves time and money.
You probably will be tired of writing a manuscript of several pages. A professional academic editor brings a fresh pair of eyes that can see things you are not able to.
3. They make you a better writer. The best academic editors don't just correct your work. They help you become a better writer by providing meaningful commentary, which if followed can help make you a better writer. Receiving continuous instruction on how to correct your writing means that your work improves over time.
EminentEdit's academic editing services
EminentEdit provides premium manuscript editing services to ensure you publish a academic workthat you can take pride in and that meets industry standards.
EminentEdit provides academic editing and proofreading services that are:
We help you publish a book to take pride in. | Get in touch for help in editing your manuscript We know what you want to say. We help you say it better. |
Our services are comprehensive and focus on making sure you end up with an academic project that meets the highest publishing standards. Our copyediting services include:
Proofreading
Line-by-line copyediting
Developmental editing to improve paper proposals and initial drafts
Extensive commentary and consultations
Talk with one of our editors through our contact page here: CONTACT US AT EMINENT EDIT.
Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2025, April 12). Choosing an Academic Editor: What to Look For. EminentEdit. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/academic-editor |
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