Editing to Your University’s Requirements

Universities often impose their own specific requirements as well, which we also absolutely take into account. We’re familiar with the very exact specifications for the major online universities, in particular, and are also able to adjust our work to account for any other formatting guidelines outside of standard APA editing.

Reference Audits

Another form of assistance commonly required at the final stages of dissertation editing is the reference audit. This involves checking all citations in your work to make sure each has a corresponding source in the references list. Then, it also involves checking each source in the references list to ensure it is cited at least once in your dissertation. To the extent possible, this also includes identifying and including any missing sources in the references list.

The Dissertation Editing Process

We’re extremely proud of our comprehensive three-stage dissertation editing service for our clients, and here’s a closer look at this support in detail:

1. Sentence-level support, which includes addressing any problems regarding passive voice and anthropomorphism, as well as correcting any spelling, grammar, or structural issues within the text. As part of this service, our dissertation editors will address:
   • Anthropomorphism
   • Capitalization
   • Comma use
   • Consistency of style
   • Contractions
   • Effect vs. affect
   • First-person elimination
   • Flow
   • Identifying overly-subjective tone
   • Over-quotation
   • Parallelism
   • Passive voice
   • Punctuation
   • Redundancy
   • Removing relative time reference
   • Scholarly precision and tone
   • Series commas
   • Subject-verb agreement
2. Formatting support ranges from a standard review of the text according to APA 7 style (or whichever style guide you must follow for your dissertation editing), to closely comparing the text to specific university or publication requirements to ensure all guidelines are followed (e.g., correct order and placement of the text in all front matter and appendices, correct headings, margins, pagination, and a complete, automated Table of Contents).
   • APA numbered lists
   • Appendix formatting
   • Automatic lists of tables and figures
   • Automatic table of contents
   • Body formatting
   • Creating proper headers and footers
   • Figure and table captions
   • Front matter set-up
   • Numeration
   • Block quotes
   • Headings
   • Pagination
   • Preparing approval sheets
   • Proper spacing
   • Removing bullets and bolding
   • Table formatting
   • In-text citations, reference lists, and/or footnotes
3. Reference audit support, which goes beyond the citation and reference formatting review per APA editing guidelines included in our formatting service, and requires a complete and thorough review of both in-text citations and your full reference list to ensure that any sources cited within the text are included in the full references (and vice-versa), as well as that all necessary source information is provided. As part of our reference audit service, we offer the following:
   • Identify missing references
   • Construct your bibliography from scratch from your written draft
   • Organize citations in bibliographic systems like EndNote and RefWorks

At Precision, we provide APA editing and other editing services to clients at every stage of the process and on every budget. Many of our dissertation editing clients are those in the final stages of their doctoral journey and feeling the financial pressure of many semesters of tuition. This is actually why we switched to a case-by-case approach for determining both the scope and cost of each client’s project–so we can work with your goals, timeline, and budget to meet your specific dissertation editing needs at an ideal (affordable) cost.  Our team of dissertation editors is experienced with editing everything from coursework and prospectuses, to concept papers, proposals, and final dissertations. This expertise means we’re able to provide in-depth, comprehensive editing services on a faster turnaround than any other dissertation editing service.

We know many of our dissertation editing clients are on a deadline, and so we’re committed to reviewing your work and providing a detailed plan and quote for assistance that same day–meaning that no matter how short your timeline, we can absolutely assist.

Once we review your draft and come up with a plan to edit and format your completed draft, we can provide you with a quote for our comprehensive editing support. Because of our extensive experience in academic and dissertation editing, we’re able to guarantee our work until approval. This means that our initial quote always includes any necessary revisions! In other words, if you receive any additional editing feedback or final adjustments from your committee or university reviewers, we can address all of that for you in full, at no additional cost.

For academic researchers seeking journal publication, we can provide you with tailored editing services to ensure your work not only meets APA 7 standards, but also meets each and every requirement from your selected journal (as well as any specific editing-related feedback). In addition to addressing any specific feedback you’ve received from journal reviewers, we also address all details of your journal’s style guide and preferences. This includes reading successful submissions from each journal to confirm or revise your writing style choices throughout your manuscript.  Unlike other dissertation editing services, we can also offer more in-depth dissertation consulting support by offering comments on a paper’s construction, organization, and study methodology. Because we have a dedicated and highly trained team of dissertation editors who focus exclusively on this work, we are able to offer much faster turnaround than other editing services – often as little as 3 to 4 days for a full dissertation.