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Thesis editing tips: how to improve your thesis?

 

If you are on this page, you wrote, experienced and suffered thesis writing on your own. Our editing and proofreading task is to help you bring it into line with the rules and norms of academic writing in English. Our thesis editing service was created to help degree candidates verify the “brainchild”. We are trying to do our best to ease the burden on the candidates for a degree, thus we keep our rates on editing of scientific texts even lower than on the editing of literary texts. Honestly, you have no reason to look for a thesis editor somewhere else. WRITE your dissertation, EDIT with us!

Thesis editing service includes:

- Formatting of the thesis text (field, font, spacing, indentation, pagination);

- Correction of the table of contents, headings, illustrations and charts, numeration;

- Editing of the list of references, appendixes.

- Providing comments of the editor regarding your writing style, structure, coherency of the text.

At the end of thesis edit the customer receives two files:

1. Completed/ finished document with amendments, which does not require the further agreement with the author concerning the editor’s comments and changed excerpts;

2. Paper draft with ALL the changes made to the text.

Thesis editing

 Many writers, who got involved with scientific research, forget that dissertation should be written in scientific language and must follow the main standards of academic writing.  Typos, mistakes and incoherency can significantly reduce the evaluation of the commission and supervisor. But this is not the worst outcome. Is necessary to understand that the final decision on awarding the scientific degree depends on a commission. Besides, members of the commission do not look at the informative part of the work in the first place, but on the correctness of the thesis formatting. The slightest discrepancy between the standards may lead to a failure. At the same time, members of the commission will not be confused by the fact that the basis of the thesis is still its content. Savings on thesis editing services may result in denial of obtaining a degree. That is why one should not underestimate the editing part.

What is thesis editing?

 There are two stages of the thesis editing process:

1)Text editing - a laborious process that includes such work as:

- Correction of stylistic mistakes: tautology, incoherence, violations of style and literary norms;

- Verification of exposition;

- Unification of terminology and editing;

- Correction of the thesis in accordance with the methodological standards, verification of the list of references, bibliography check and setting of citations per specific referencing style (Harvard, Chicago, APA, MLA, etc).

2)Proofreading involves correcting of grammatical errors, spelling standardization and check of correctness of table of contents, charts, illustrations, appendixes, etc.

Why is it important to apply for professional editing help?

Experience shows that the student, even being a competent and skillful person fails to notice all mistakes in the own work, because the knowledge of the text does not allow to focus on the technical aspect. Thesis editor should possess a variety of skills and knowledge: literacy, attentiveness, understanding of the specifics of editing, terminology and the knowledge of the current academic standards in particular. The thing is that writing rules regulate everything even the inadmissibility of gaps between the initials. Only a real expert can cope with such a task due to the large experience in this field and years of practice.

How much does a thesis editing cost and where to find an expert Editor?

Specialists who deal with professional dissertation and thesis editing can work for editing companies or can become freelancers. Such dissertation services can be easily found on the Internet. But do not forget about fraud. Always pay attention to the experience, prices and examples of the works.

Editing of theses is a service that requires numerous and diverse skills and knowledge. In the process of editing, qualified and attentive experts solve a number of problems, for example:

  • An editor must check whether the text corresponds to the spelling and punctuation rules of the English language.
  • An expert must verify whether the document follows academic standards of thesis writing and fix typing errors.
  • A specialist must examine the style of the text, correct various stylistic errors that are present in almost every thesis, regardless of the author’s writing skills and literacy.
  • An editor must check the coherency of the text. Even slightest mistakes in punctuation, conjunction of the sentences, or quotations may complicate the readability of the text.
  • An expert must edit terminology. Incorrect usage of terms is a fairly common phenomenon in thesis writing, as the author of the PhD thesis is not yet a professional scientist and he is just learning. In these conditions, a view from the outside of a professional editor may be very valuable.
  • Editor checks terms and proper names, abbreviations and symbols. There are some terms that may be spelled differently, thus an editor will always indicate the best possible variant for a thesis.
  • A specialist will format the list of references/ bibliography. All in-text citations or references in the text must be formatted strictly according to the rules of a certain referencing style and there are no exceptions. The main body of the text should not contain any links or bibliographical descriptions, all quotations must be properly cited and correspond to the list of references at the end of the paper. Thesis bibliography must be complete and contain no excesses at all. This means, firstly, that all of the works that are referenced in the text must be present in the bibliography. Secondly, bibliography should not contain such works that were read by the author during the research and process of preparation for the thesis, but were not referenced in the final text.

As a rule, only a professional editor, who has a specialized education and experience in editing of academic papers, may edit the thesis in accordance with the above mentioned requirements.