Academic Copy Editing

Our editors help make your document submission-ready by polishing sentence structure, grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Editors can also help writers enhance elements of clarity and consistency in academic writing. Editors will help you polish your document, but authors have autonomy over their work and hold responsibility for the final version.

Please note that the copy-editing service is only for final-stage academic and professional documents. Copy editors do not edit course papers, assignments, exams, or anything submitted for grading.

What we edit

We provide copy editing on a range of documents, including:

• Theses
• Books
• Articles for publication
• Funding proposals
• Capstone projects
• Reports
• Career documents

What to expect

Our editors focus on grammatical and punctuation errors, logical and conceptual inconsistencies, and unclear communication. While our expertise is in academic writing and editing, we are not experts in your discipline, so we won't address issues of content except when they affect clear communication.

We also don't rewrite your document or make it fully publication-ready. Expect to do some further polishing after we return it to you. If you are submitting a document for publication, we are willing to provide remarks tailored to the requirements of the journal at your request. Please note that we do not check your document against the Student Academic Integrity Policy (SAIP) or Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies (GPS) formatting requirements, as compliance remains the responsibility of the writer, and editors do not specialize in any one citation style or check citations.

Fees

The copy-editing service is available at a subsidized rate of $2.50 per double-spaced page for current U of A students and postdoctoral scholars. For other clients, our fees start at $5.50 per double-spaced page.

How it works

1. Submit your request: Use the link below and upload your file when prompted. Your file should be a double-spaced Word document named in the format LASTNAME_EDITING REQUEST.
2. Suitability review: One of our editors will review your document to determine whether it fits our service, meaning writing that would benefit from revision and correction but doesn't require major rewriting. If it doesn't fit, we'll recommend other options to help you move forward.
3. Estimate and confirmation: If your document fits our criteria, we'll send you fee and time estimates. Once you agree to the fee and confirm you'd like to proceed, we will get started.

Submit a copy-editing request

Questions? Contact us at editing@ualberta.ca.