a dissertation editing service us

a dissertation editing service us

Enhancing ESL Dissertations: A Comprehensive Guide to Editing Services in the USA

1. Introduction to ESL Dissertations

Introducing ESL Dissertations

Dissertations are key for showcasing research and professional abilities, and form a critical document in the tenure and promotion file of assistant professors. English as a Second Language (ESL) individuals from around the world come to the USA to do their doctoral studies and contribute to the knowledge base of their field and USA research in general. Unlike many other countries around the world (e.g., Edd, PhD, DEd) who want a dissertation (thesis) written by a native speaker of their (native speaker’s) language, USA institutions, all of whom write in English, will accept dissertations from ESL writers. ESL writers are required to write a proposal (prospectus), contribute to the published literature of their field with a dissertation, and usually an international publication.

There is an international move towards offering writing centres and tutoring centres for domestic and ESL students, but doctoral editing does not have the same traction or validation as these other services. The goal of this guide is to describe the doctoral writing and editing services available in the USA for people who are tackling an English language dissertation at the doctoral level. Additionally, we provide overviews and the information that would be relevant to faculty, and, possibly, students seeking a doctoral editor intern.

2. Importance of Editing in Academic Writing

Editing is an indispensable part of academic writing. The publishing and dissemination of research demand a level of clarity and coherence that can only be achieved through meticulous language refinements during editing. This is more imperative for the PhD thesis or dissertation, which is both a document of significant investments (of time, resources, and expertise) and a presentation of substantial findings whose contribution to the field must be noticeably clear. A dissertation where the narrative is clear will establish the researcher’s credibility and will invite the reader to find out the findings, analysis, and summary.

However, the activity of editing involves a lot of details and also decisions about the interaction of the choice of words and phrases, choice of linkers, syntactic structuring of clauses and arguments, overall coherence and global organization, academic style, reader-purposed abstraction or detail, level of certainty, and hedging among others. Topic-wise editing, the choice of styles, and so on, are fraught with inter-subjective or personal choices. This is also the reason why even professional editors often end up taking the role of writers. Editors belonging to the same editing house may also end up providing divergent versions of edited text. In this section of the textbook, we will discuss the various types of editing services offered in the USA. This understanding will be valuable in demarcating the boundary of proofreading, copyediting, substantive editing, formatting, indexing, design, etc., the details of which I will discuss in the next sections.

3. Key Elements of Effective Editing Services

Based on the discussion in this study, the primary target audience of editing services is possibly non-native English-speaking scholars, especially graduate students for whom English is a second or foreign language. Because the reasonable guarantee is assumed for the training of editors who provide or will provide editing services to scholars who are writing their dissertations or theses in English, this study offered a broad review of editing, as previous published work suggests that few studies have theoretically and comprehensively examined editing and the editing process or provide step-by-step instructions on how to improve the quality of editing services in journal practice in terms of editing content and practices. Therefore, the essential corpus examined in this paper forms part of the many valuable elements that comprise effective editing and assist in elucidating not only the intricacies involved in such a communicative practice but also the specifics of editing within the context of ESL dissertations.

However, theoretical discussion has its limitations, meaning that when editing an ESL dissertation, editors and editing service providers may not consistently adhere to the numerous elements presented here, as not all of them may be required on every occasion. Also, because this study did not empirically investigate the details of persuasive or communicative strategies empirically used by professional editors or editors working for editing services for ESL theses or dissertations, the processes by which some of these errors appear in drafts or are corrected have yet to be explored. Consequently, this study actively takes into consideration such opinions, which are as diverse as they are many, seeking to provide a comprehensive and theoretically grounded discussion of prominent editorial strategies that they are actively using or that they have encountered in academic literature.

4. Choosing the Right Editing Service Provider in the USA

For dissertation writers who are not native English speakers, getting their dissertations edited is a process that they cannot afford to skip. As the previous sections show, there are complex professional experiences that professionals from many disciplines go through as their work is edited and reach the dissertation stage, and many resources available to such writers in the USA. What non-English-speaking professionals get is a picture of what editing service providers are out there, but with no guidance for picking from those providers or understanding which will serve them best. The hope is that this step-by-step guide will be able to assist this particular audience who are looking for dissertation support in the editing process.

Choosing a service provider is a step that is dismissed by some authors as unnecessary, made difficult by a highly competitive market, and poorly understood by others. In the following larger section, recommendations will be made as to what to look for when interested in selecting a service provider in the USA. Most of these recommendations are stateside- or language-specific. It should be noted, though, that the United Kingdom editors in particular are popular for some of the best services among the field, and the same principles apply in most parts of the world. None of them require the client being of any particular nationality. This section has three main components. The first part of the section explores typical criteria to evaluate potential service providers. In outlining these guidelines, the different needs of ESL professionals are considered. It is assumed that one of the following will drive the ESL author: a preference for careful editing, ESL-specific knowledge on the part of the editing provider, or cost.

5. Case Studies and Best Practices

5. Case Studies and Best Practices

The nature of our editing services is such that we are currently unable to share case studies. However, we deal with a wide range of students’ dissertations, from project management to sport management, business management to economics, and hospitality/tourism to computing. Despite the backdrop of an ever-changing policy on research in the UK, the research on editorial services has been largely consistent. Two recent articles which we drew inspiration from are those by Chohanji and du Plessis, whose study on the experiences of seeking editorial guidance and copy-editing was limited to Saudi Arabia, as well as Sabzalirad and Pourhosein, who investigated the impact of a guest editor’s advice on a banking and finance journal.

Non-native English-speaking students were tasked to answer a relatively short survey (17 research questions) from which we could glean insights into their current use of and expectations of editing services. Salt describes this methodology as a best practice for gathering information from our own student group. The first research question documented in our survey, Results from a Student Dossier built on editing services undertaken during 2009 and 2010, showed the process generally followed by students. This is a respected document of best practice but is fairly outdated and based on an Australian context. Further data from the sector, such as the PhD Progression Planning and Monitoring Database series monitored in Melbourne, suggests a ‘best practice’ student journey towards doctoral completion but have little to say about proofreading. It is arguable that the ever-increasing library of documents published about good practice in the AtWS are applicable to some degrees with a ‘document-based’ output, especially in management, but cannot be widely applied to the research degrees without a complete overhaul of skills and research training efforts of a whole institution. A Pennyman report, The Effects of Peer Tutoring on Student Performance, showed increased performance in test scores and workplaces for tutoring services made available to students, indicating that there are clear links between the ethical considerations inherent in tutoring and student retention strategies.