I offer a few different levels of editing, depending on your needs.

The base rate for all types of editing is the same: $60/hr, with a 4 hour minimum. It is of course implausible to predict beforehand how challenging a project will be, but the following are some reasonable guidelines.

Line Edits

This is the most popular option, a sentence-level analysis and correction of punctuation and grammar errors. Missing or excessive commas, verb tense agreement, and all of the errors that are missed because five people have edited the same sentence multiple times. This ensures that your yours aren’t you’res when they shouldn’t be, and that your idioms are in line with common usage. I also remove redundant verbiage to tighten up bloated sentences and ensure concise communication.

An average journal paper of reasonable complexity takes 4-5 hours at this level, Longer or more complex documents may take longer, but when we start work together we can agree on at what point you will need to be alerted to avoid overspending.

Content Edits

At this level, I ensure the flow of ideas makes sense, and that the overall structure of the document is coherent. I’ll check for conceptual redundancy, make certain that all ideas are supported by relevant arguments or data, and ensure that the overall structure of the document works toward the goal of what you are attempting to express. Most academic papers will not need this, as the order of concepts tends to be fairly constrained by the form. But if you are writing narrative nonfiction, grant proposals, or other documents where the essential meaning of the document is defined as much by its form as its content, this can be a very useful option.

In general, this will add approximately a half hour of work per page to a document, depending on the complexity and difficulty.

Regardless of what your needs are, I will attempt to provide you a rough estimate of the length of time required to perform the edits when I first get access to the documents. If, while working, I determine that the amount of time is going to significantly exceed that, I will of course communicate with you to determine how to proceed.