DM - Freelance editor, translator & teacher

Forty years' experience of editing of postgraduate documents

I offer a comprehensive edit, which entails:

• To ensure that the prescribed front matter (e.g. title page, declaration, English abstract, Afrikaans abstract, acknowledgments and list of contents) are correct and complete in terms of official wording and order

• To correct or comment on (I ask the student first if I am not sure)
• problematic sentence and paragraph structure
• significant and prevalent stylistic problems (e.g. problems with coherence and register)
• repetition of text
• vague formulations or possible ambiguities
• headings - for clarity and appropriateness
• redundancies
• abbreviations and acronyms that have been used incorrectly (not subject terminology – I will ask)
• faulty quotations (I do not check or change the content of quotations)
• spelling and typing errors
• inappropriate word usage
• subject-verb agreement
• consistency of spelling and punctuation

• A reference edit, which focuses on the following:
• in-text reference punctuation (including the punctuation in the reference list)
• ensure correct application of referencing style in in-text references
• correlate parts: check and correct incorrect cross-references, internal page references, footnote/endnote numbers and text, and the table of content
• check that all references that appear in the reference list are referenced in the text
• check and correct the reference list in accordance with the prescribed style (I do not check the accuracy of bibliographical information)

The student will be guided to compare their original version of the text electronically with my version so that they can see what was changed and check if all the changes are to their satisfaction. “Track changes” are not used, because the messiness it creates can lead to mistakes being missed or even to new mistakes being left in the text.