How to Find Professional, Expert and Reliable Proofreaders and Editors Online

We have asked an experienced proofreader about some advice to give researchers and academics for how to find professional proofreaders online. This was her answer.

Are you interested in working with a real-life, human editor, and not Grammarly?

I am going to respond like you’re, because I can not suggest an online service like Grammarly at all. They, in my experience, create more problems than they solve.

I recommend networking. Ask around at your faculty about the editor they resort to for proofreading academic material and manuscripts such as dissertations and journal papers. Check social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, or other writer groups that you are a part of. Always rely on referrals (that is how most of my work finds me).

If that fails, do an online search. Numerous freelance editors and proofreaders are available online and would be happy to assist. In such circumstances, thoroughly vet your information. Investigate the editor’s webpage. Are they able to provide you with the information you require? Do you receive positive vibes from it?

Following that, compile information about your research writing or project. How many words does it contain? What is the discipline, topic or research area your are talking about? You already know this, but when I receive a call from a potential client, these are the first two questions I ask. What is the background or topic discussed? What type of work do you require — editing has varying degrees of difficulty and involves checking sentence structure, conciseness, coherency, academic tone and overall readability. Meanwhile, proofreading is more of a surface level check and is performed right before delivery of the final draft to the publisher.

Another thing to consider is the delivery time. Ask about whether they would be able to meet your submission deadline, and roughly how many days they need to complete working on the manuscript. Do you work on multiple manuscripts concurrently (this is not a problem for many authors, but it is for some, so determine if this is a problem for you. Otherwise, omit it!)? Ask if they can handle multiple papers at a time. Also, ask if they have skilled proofreaders available who also has a background in your research discipline.

Another possible question to ask is if they can supply you with some samples? This is so you can get an idea about their work quality. Finally, decide whether you are prepared to pay for them. Certain editors charge high rates, while others charge lower rates. That should be sufficient to get you started. Best of luck.

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We provide proofreading and editing services for doctoral PhD theses and dissertations, Master’s theses and dissertations, research proposals, scientific journal papers, as well as other academic manuscripts. We also provide an official proofreading certificate that is recognized by the majority of journals and publishers. Our professional and expert proofreaders offer low proofreading rates and charges that are affordable for postgraduate university students, researchers and academics. We are amongst the best proofreading companies available. If you are looking for fast and reliable proofreading, our skilled editors can surely assist with that. Just search for ‘academic proofreaders near me’ in Malaysia, and you can find a number of other professional proofreaders available, including us. We also offer other academic services such as style format adjustment, in-text citations and references checking, language translation, paraphrasing and Turnitin report generation. Upload your manuscript now and get a free quotation.