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Dissertation Editing Fees of 7 Academic Editors

By Hiten Vyas

If you’ve just completed a dissertation as a part of your Master’s degree, or a thesis as a part of your PhD program, well done.

You’re almost there!

Before submitting your dissertation or thesis for assessment, don’t forget to edit and proofread it properly.

By doing this, you develop a perception in the eyes of the assessors that they are about to read a high quality document.

Of course, the content needs to be top-notch. However, having a dissertation that is presented professionally will do wonders in encouraging the assessors to want to hold and read the culmination of your research.

If you’ve got a skill for editing and proofreading, then go ahead and do these on your dissertation.

However, there’s nothing like having a second pair of eyes, preferably the eyes of someone who doesn’t know you and your work, to look over it.

This is where professional academic editors can help.

Of course, such individuals are offering a service for which there will be a charge.

If you’re wondering about dissertation editing fees, then we’ve listed 7 freelance academic editors below and given an idea of how much they charge for editing theses and dissertations.

Do note these rates are indicative, and you will always get a proper quote after you’ve interacted with an editor, and provided him or her with more information about your dissertation and editing needs.

Remember, before you hire a dissertation editor, be sure to double check his or her credentials, and always request a small sample edit of your work before making any commitment. Also, find an editor that has experience in any style guidelines you’re using, and find someone you can connect with who will do the best job possible for your dissertation.

In addition, double check with your faculty or department on any guidance they have on hiring an external editor and whether you’re permitted to do so.

Let’s get onto the 7 academic editors and their rates.

1. Allison Van Deventer

Alison Van Denter has been editing for the past 15 years in various roles, including as an editor for elementary textbooks. An experienced writing instructor and coach, she’s been freelancing since 2015 and is a member of Editorial Freelancers Association . Allison holds a BA in English and French from Stanford University and an MA and PhD in Comparative Literature from UCLA. She has significant experience in working with graduate students on dissertations, theses, journal articles, grant applications, and applications for fellowships.

Based in Boston, Allison offers copyediting for correctness and consistency, stylistic editing for polishing the lines in documents, and developmental editing for the development of concepts and the structure of your work. Take a look at this page for more details on what is included in the three main types of editing Allison offers.

Allison’s dissertation editing rates

Before deciding whether to hire Allison, she can provide you with a sample edit (of 200 words), a quote and a free phone consultation to discuss your project. To give you an idea of her rates, her standard fee is $40 per hour and $35 per hour if you’re a fulltime student. Take a look at her ‘Rates’ page for more information.

2. Susan Murray

Susan Murray specializes in offering copyediting and development editing services to graduate students, academic staff and PhD students ensuring adherence to styles such as MLA, Chicago and APA. An editor of dissertations and theses in humanities, Susan has edited hundreds of academic pieces of work including books, and also transforming dissertations into books. She has an impressive client list including organizations such as Louisiana State University Press, University of Virginia Press, University Press of Kentucky, University Press of Florida, NYU Press, and Fordham University Press, among a number of others.

If you would like to get a free editing quote, you need to send in your dissertation as a Microsoft Word document, and describe the editing services you require, along with other important information such as required style guides (e.g. APA), any guides required by your university, and your deadlines. You also need to provide your name, email address and the University or college you are studying at. After receiving your dissertation and other required information, Susan will send you a quote that will factor in how much work is involved, the page count of your document and the type of editing services you requested. Take a look at this page for further information on the process involved and use this contact form to get a quote from Susan.

Susan’s dissertation editing rates

A holder of a Bachelor’s degree in German from the University of New Hampshire and a Master’s degree in English Literature from the University of New Hampshire, Susan’s dissertation editing rates for copyediting are $48 per hour, whatever the editing requirements. In effect, if Susan was to copyedit your dissertation, the bill you receive would be based upon the number of hours she would work on your project. Her fees for development editing of dissertations is $72 per hour; this higher fee reflects the nature of such editing as it looks at the structure of your document and reorganizes it considerably more compared to copyediting.

3. Kathleen Kline

Kathleen Kline has developed specialist skills in academic editing, writing, and teaching over the past 30 years. Owner of Kathleen Kline & Associates, which she started in 1986 and through which she offers academic editing services, she is also Director of The Writing Center at the Wright Institute School of Professional Psychology, which is in Berkeley, California; this organization offers workshops and talks both live in the San Francisco Bay Area and through remote means.

Author of the book entitled Confessions of a Dissertation Editor: Practical Guidance and Real-Life Stories , her editing process starts by reviewing your document and doing a sample edit, spending 1-2 hours doing so. The fee for this sample edit is $150.00. If you decide to hire her for the editing of the whole of your dissertation, this cost would be subsumed within the total editing costs for your project. At this stage, you would also get an idea of Kathleen’s editing work and she would also gain a better idea of how long it would take to edit your whole document. Her fees are based mostly on minutes per page (mmp). After sending you back the sample edit, Kathleen then would send you a proposed contract to consider.

Kathleen’s dissertation editing costs

Her dissertation and thesis standard rates are at $85 per hour. She also has set dissertation fees for Argosy students; these rates are $650 for a dissertation 100 pages long that consists of ensuring your document adheres to APA and of proofreading, and $150 for a 100 page dissertation that requires a light review of a document that doesn’t need any further revisions. Do take a look at this page for more information on the special rates, for further details on Kathleen’s standard rates and also the editing process she uses.

4. Liz Hunter

Based just outside of Edinburgh, Liz Hunter specializes in editing and proofreading theses and academic books in the arts, humanities and social sciences fields. With a Bachelor’s Degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, she is also a member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders and follows the code of conduct of this organization. She has also been trained in copyediting, on-screen editing and proofreading. Liz is particularly experienced in working with students working on academic documents for whom English is a second language.

Liz’s thesis editing prices

Liz’s rates are usually £10 per thousand words, but the exact amount is dependent on the level of editing you need. The areas Liz can help you out with editing your thesis or dissertation, are checking for spelling, grammar, punctuation, typos and correct use of language. She can also make certain that your citations, footnotes and references have been arranged properly, highlight where you may want to recheck for consistency and also pick out areas of your document that are not clear, and share tips on making improvements. To get a proper estimate of the cost of your project, contact Liz with information on the length of your dissertation, its deadline and a sample from the document.

5. Alison Platt

Alison Platt is a freelance researcher and editor with over two decades worth of experience of conducting, managing and requesting social research and editing research reports and corporate documents. She is also experienced in editing dissertations and theses for students and journal articles for academics. When it comes to editing, Alison is able to offer light editing, which can consist of a small amount of restructuring and redrafting to help improve the clarity of your work and checking of facts and names. She can also do heavy editing which involves significant restructuring and redrafting.

Alison’s dissertation editing fees

Alison’s indicative fees for standard editing (mainly text that is continuous, written in non-technical language and is about a topic that isn’t specialist) are £12 per 1000 words for light editing, and £12 per 1000 words for heavy editing. If your dissertation doesn’t meet requirements for standard editing, then Alison will be able to give a custom quote based upon a sample you provide and the work that would be required to edit it. Do take a look at this page for further information, and contact details and a contact form can be found here .

6. Dr Lisa Lines

Dr Lisa Lines heads up Capstone Editing and in addition to being an author and historian, is a leading academic editor in Australia. With two PhDs (one in History and the other in Creative Writing), Dr Lines’s experience includes the editing of academic documents in their thousands, which also consists of editing in excess of 300 theses. She has an extensive academic background with experience of lecturing across all of the major universities in South Australia. At the University of South Australia she has trained students in Advanced Editing and Publishing and Advanced Technical Writing.

When it comes to editing theses, Dr Lines and her team at Capstone Editing can offer professional copyediting that meets standards for global publication and required guidelines for appropriate style, language and referencing.

Dr Lines’s dissertation editing services fees

Capstone Editing has a useful price calculator available at its website. As of writing this post, using the calculator, the editing cost of a 20,000 words document with a turnaround time of 7 days was priced at $733.50; this price is in Australian Dollars. You can access the calculator here and enter the word count of your thesis to get a quote and further details about exactly what you get in the editing service.

7. Hugh Jackson

Based in Lewes, Hugh Jackson is a professional editor who has edited PhD theses, journal articles and around 200 books, along with other types of varied content of different sizes, ranging from blog posts to large academic books written by multiple academic books. An editor who can edit both in American and British English, Hugh works with clients across the world. His professional background and qualifications are in social science and law, and his academic editing experience has consisted mainly of working with students and academics on theses, research proposals, essays, and journal articles. He is able to work according to any style guidelines. A particular strength of Hugh’s is his ability to check that references and citations have been used correctly.

Hugh’s fees for editing theses and dissertations

Hugh’s approach to charging fees is to charge by the word, rather than charging by the hour and his current rates for copyediting for the first 2000 words is £25 per thousand words, and then £18 per thousand words for the next 3000 words, £15 per thousand words for the subsequent 5000 words, £12 per thousand for the next 20,000 words and then £6 per thousand words for the rest of the words in your document. Do take a look at his ‘Fees’ page for further information.

Are you an academic editor who edits dissertations and theses? Please introduce yourself in the comments box below!

[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/hv1.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Hiten Vyas is the Founder and Managing Editor of Writing Tips Oasis .[/author_info] [/author]

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"I used Editor World's editing service for my undergraduate thesis two years ago, and the editor gave me great and detailed advice on the language and grammar, which helped to make that paper easier to read. Now I am graduating from a Master program and plan to apply to a PhD program, so I am using the editing services again to revise my writing sample and resume. Thanks a lot for the services you provide. You have made my life much better because English is my second language."  -Liu Jin, Durham, North Carolina

How Much Does Dissertation Editing Cost?

The price you pay for dissertation editing services can vary greatly depending on who you hire, but you can expect to pay at least  $0.02 per word . Given the average PhD dissertation word count of 80,000 words , the cost for professional editing is about $1,650 or higher  (U.S. dollars). The cost for comprehensive editing of an 80,000-word dissertation at Scribbr is $2,665 with a 1-week turnaround. PaperTrue charges $2,800 for dissertation editing with a 10-day turnaround, and the price is $1,820 with a 30-day turnaround. The price for editing an 80,000-word dissertation is $2,483 at Scribendi, with a 2-week turnaround. When you need fast, high-quality dissertation editing and proofreading services, the PhD editors at Editor World are here to help (our price for editing a dissertation with 80,000 words is $1,680. To view a list of top dissertation editing services available online, see our summary of 10 dissertation editing services . Some dissertation editors charge a set fee to edit a dissertation, while others set the price based on page count or word count. The cost to edit a dissertation also depends on the type of editing the editor provides. If you are in the early stages of writing your dissertation, more involved editing, known as rewriting or substantive editing , may be needed. Because this type of editing is more involved, it will be more expensive. In this stage, the editor may need to work more closely with you, such as meeting regularly to discuss areas that require improvement and reworking the chapters.

In later stages of the dissertation writing process, you may need a round of copyediting, where the editor focuses on clarity, readability, grammar, word usage, spelling, and punctuation. After you defend and finalize your dissertation, a round of proofreading will help you eliminate any minor errors remaining in the document. This ensures that your final dissertation is as error-free and professional as possible. The cost of proofreading your dissertation will be lower than the price for editing. The price paid for editing your dissertation can increase if the editor has extensive experience with dissertation editing. The length of the time the editor is given to edit your dissertation, or the turnaround time, also impacts the price. A rush editing service, one that gives the editor very little time to edit the dissertation, will have a higher fee.

Dissertation editors may also charge lower per-word or per-page rates for longer projects, so if you are submitting your dissertation for editing chapter-by-chapter you may pay a higher price than if you submit the complete dissertation at one time. However, having the dissertation edited as you work on each chapter can be less intimidating because you only need to revise one section at a time. Considering your work style can help you decide whether to submit your dissertation for editing as you complete each chapter or to wait and submit the full dissertation for editing at one time.

As with any service you purchase, you need to obtain as much information as possible about your dissertation editor before submitting payment. This includes previous client feedback on the editor's performance with dissertations, the full cost to edit your dissertation, and the deadline for receiving your edited dissertation. It is also imperative that you provide detailed instructions for your editor so he or she can best meet your needs. When you're ready to publish journal articles based on your dissertation, review our list of academic writing dos and don'ts . 

About Editor World's Dissertation Editing Services

As of April 2023, Editor World’s  cost to edit  a 80,000-word dissertation is $1,680. Some editors offer a discount of up to 20%, which would reduce the  dissertation editing  cost to $1,344. Our dissertation editing services help you focus on the content of your dissertation while we perfect your words, increasing your chances of successfully completing your dissertation and doctorate. Editor World is also available for rewriting and paraphrasing ,  academic editing ,  dissertation editing , thesis proofreading , and so much more!

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