Hello,

In the course of writing the PhD, i notice that there is need for a lot of editing. When i write my thesis i don't seem to see the punctuation or grammatical errors. I used to exchange papers and theses with another colleague when i was doing my masters as i could edit another person's work while they edit mine. I feel a bit guilty giving my supervisor an unedited work. I dont know if it is part of their terms of reference.

Does anyone have any experience with editing services (checking for grammatical/punctuation errors and whether the argument makes any sense) and how much they could cost for a 70000 word PhD thesis?

Cheers,

K

At a meeting I went to recently they said the way to proof read it is to start on the right side a read towards the left. You won't get the meaning, but you will spot the errors, or so they said anyway. may be worth a try. the other thing is to put it one side for a while and then read it, that way you will have forgotten it enough for you to be able to spot missing words etc.

my mum! In my department its common to proof read chapters for each other, although you have to be careful you don't give it to anyone who would demand their name on a publication for doing so!

I had taken paid work proof-reading master's theses before (for students who are not native English speaker - so it's mainly to check grammars and academic writing style) but I don't know anyone who uses professional proof-reading service for their PhD thesis. I know it's pretty common for people to ask their boyfriends/girlfriends/parents to proof read for them (i.e. someone not in the discipline - just to check clarity of writing etc). I wouldn't worry about giving your supervisor "unedited" writing to read. It's their job!! And your thesis needs to be rewritten and rewritten before it's ready to submit anyway. As long as it's not written like under an hour and you know for sure is absolute rubbish I wouldn't feel guilty about it at all. I can understand where you're coming from though - I was, and still am, a bit of a perfectionist. At the start of my PhD I tended to take very long time to get any piece of writing done, because I wanted them to be good. Soon after I was advised that that's the wrong way to go about it, because it's your supervisor's job to help you improve and edit your writing (both in terms of content and writing style) so you can make much better and quicker progress. I must admit this is still something that I have to struggle with constantly, but I try my best not to let the perfectionist in me get the best of me!

Good luck with your PhD!

The uni I worked at (to where I am doing my PhD) will pay for a proof reader for staff prior to submission (but as I have only just had my proposal accepted I am no where near to even finding out the process or cost)

Dear, i am ready for proofreading or editing thesis.

Nice.

At the end of the day, my mum helped me to look through for errors. God bless her. From my experience may be more cost effective for family to look through it. Feel a bit sorry for the supervisors who have to go through unedited work over and over again but as someone said, they are paid for it. Got my PhD about 3 years ago. Don't give up. Keep pressing on. You'll make it at the end of the day. All the best.

It would have costed me about £200 to have a pro proof-read my thesis. Supervisor did super job, but actually your thesis is not going to fail on typos etc. Obviously make sure it meets minimum standards but clearly content the important thing.

I wouldn't expect supervisor's to edit work. Yes, they could point out a few mistakes here and there, but not full blown editing. Ask your research office, there may be other people who can help with that.