Why hire a professional editor?

Editing services have many valuable uses across all areas of daily life. For professionals, students, academics, and even small business owners, using a high-quality editing service can save you time, frustration, and potential grammar embarrassment.

Everybody who has used editing services before understands that good editing is one of the cornerstones of good writing. However, for those of you who doubt this, or for anybody who has never used an editing and proofreading service, this article will explain the value of a professional editor.

Saving time

Instead of reading your book, essay, or product description for the third, fourth, or even the tenth time, consider hiring a reliable and professional editor. This will allow you to move on to something else with the confidence of knowing that your document is in the hands of a trained expert.

Saving frustration

Revising your work alone can lead to considerable stress and frustration. For example, after reading and re-reading your work, it’s often difficult to gain certainty that you have conveyed your ideas in the clearest and most effective possible way.

If you have written work checked over by a professional editor, you can be sure that the final product is the best it can be. The gains you make in terms of saving frustration are very likely to outweigh the overall cost associated with hiring an editor, which is often quite small.

 

Image: Editing your own work is notoriously frustrating

Fresh eyes

When you spend time writing a document, you become overly familiar with the work. As a result, you inevitably begin to overlook even small errors. At the same time, if you consistently spell or use a word incorrectly, or if your writing style is sometimes awkward, it can be difficult for you to find and correct these issues. A professional editor, however, can look at your document and correct it with a knowledgeable pair of eyes.

Editors are professionals

Editors are specialists in what they do. They have internalized all the best tips and tricks that can be used to improve your written work. If you do not have specific training in this area, it is always best to consult with someone who does to achieve the best result.

Developing your projects

When you hire a professional editor, they can help you achieve substantial progress in many projects that would otherwise take considerable time. For example, if you are writing recommendation letters for a student, a new CV for your dream job, or a new blog for your website, editors can speed up the process. An editor is a paid professional – it’s worth making use of their expertise

 

 

 

How do paraphrasers really add value to your work?

To paraphrase an original source, you need to rewrite it so that its ideas and statements are expressed in a new variation of words. This is the reason why paraphrasing services are often referred to as rewriting services.

A paraphrasing service allows you to speed up your writing process without directly plagiarising other sources. For example, you can send a list of quotes to a strong paraphraser and, in return, receive a coherent piece of text containing exactly the same information, all nicely linked together. Clearly, this is very useful when conducting research or writing a literature review.

Image: The benefits of paraphrasing are diverse

One of the clearest ways that paraphrasers and document rewriters can add value to your work relates to the time you save. Whatever the document is that you need to write, whether a press release, a blog article, or an academic essay, using a paraphrasing service can speed up the process significantly. Given that you can invest the time you save in other projects, all the while improving the quality of your writing, there is a clear dual benefit to working with a professional paraphraser.

Since paraphrasing is the only alternative to using direct quotation, another crucial way that paraphrasers can add significant value to your work is by ensuring that you avoid this. In academic writing, the excessive use of direct quotation is to be avoided at all costs. The main reason why is that your markers and peers do not want you to rely on another’s understanding of a topic as evidence of your own knowledge and understanding. For this reason, since working with a professional paraphraser will allow you to avoid the overuse of direct quotation, it may improve the mark your academic essay or dissertation receives.

Image: Try to find a paraphraser who specialises in your subject area

Committing plagiarism as a student or an academic comes with severe consequences. Even in business, there are consequences of plagiarism that you should seek to avoid. For example, it is well known that websites that plagiarise content from other places on the Internet tend to be downranked by the search algorithms of companies like Google, Bing, and others. Therefore, whether you are writing a new blog post or your final-year dissertation, checking it for plagiarism before you publish it, and using a paraphraser to minimise plagiarism, is vital.

Finally, it is worth highlighting the importance of working with a paraphraser who is an expert in your area of study. This is because good paraphrasing and proofreading services can only be offered when the paraphraser understands the subject matter. Therefore, to ensure that your experience working with a paraphraser leads to a positive outcome, it is important to communicate with them in advance.

How can professional proofreading help ESL students?

ESL, or English as a Second Language, refers to the teaching of the English language to students in countries that use first languages other than English. Many ESL students recognise that professional proofreading, and especially professional proofreading services, play a vital role in the learning process, but how exactly does professional proofreading help?

 

1. Articles

One of the extremely common mistakes that ESL students often make in their written work relates to the difficulties experienced in knowing when to use a definite rather than an indefinite article, and vice versa. There are two indefinite articles in the English language – “a” and “an” – and only one definite article – “the”.

The rules that govern the use of definite and indefinite articles are taken for granted by first language speakers, but for ESL students they can create substantial confusion. This often leads to article-related errors creeping up in the work of ESL students. For this reason, using professional proofreading services can correct the misuse of articles and show ESL students how to stop making these errors in their future writing.

 

2. Wordiness

Writing in a concise way is fundamental, especially in today’s fast-paced world. Therefore, the wordiness that marks much of the work produced by ESL students is a key area for improvement in many lessons. When a professional proofreader looks over your work, they can identify and eliminate wordy sentences, and if you analyse the types of changes the proofreader has made, you can gradually learn how to write more directly, concisely and effectively.

 

3. Adverbs

An adverb is a word that modifies a verb (e.g., “slowly”, “peacefully”, or “dramatically”). When ESL students start practicing their academic writing, a common mistake involves placing an adverb too far away from the verb that is to be modified. Another common mistake is the so-called “split infinitive”, where an adverb is sandwiched in between a verb and the preceding “to” (e.g., “to rapidly move”). Professional proofreaders will spot and correct these errors in your writing, not only improving your grade but also helping you to avoid similar mistakes in the future.

 

4. Adjectives

An adjective is a word used to add some description to a noun. When an ESL student wants to describe a noun using a single adjective, this is generally unproblematic (i.e., it is widely known, and easy to remember, that the adjective is placed before the noun). However, when two or more adjectives are used, diverse mistakes often arise in the written work of ESL students.

For example, when considering the sentence, “She would like a red new car”, a first language speaker of English will immediately sense that something sounds strange. Do you think so? Can you put your finger on the mistake?

In short, the mistake – which would be corrected to “new red car” from “red new car” – relates to the rules governing the order of adjectives. If you consistently make these errors but the proofreader highlights and correct them, you will gradually learn to write in a more natural way in the English language.

 

 

Differences between proofreading and editing

Proofreading and editing have several features in common, but it is important to know how these stages of document preparation differ. This is especially the case if you are deciding whether to order proofreading and editing services.

 

What are proofreading and editing?

Proofreading is the process in which misspellings, inconsistencies, and incorrect punctuation and grammar are identified and corrected. By contrast, editing is a more comprehensive process that is concerned with optimising the clarity, style, and structure of a document.

 

How do they differ?

There are many important differences between editing and proofreading. Perhaps the most fundamental difference relates to the scope of the two processes, as described in the previous section. However, if you are interested in ordering editing and proofreading services, it is important to know about the other ways in which these services differ.

 

When are they performed?

Editing is best suited for the first draft of a document, while it is always the most effective strategy to proofread only the final draft of your document. However, there are certain exceptions to this general rule.

For example, in special cases, such as when a second language speaker of English has finished the final draft of their document, an editing service may be the best option to correct suboptimal language use.

 

How long do they take?

The time taken to provide an effective editing service is often significantly longer than the time required for a strong, high-quality proofreading service.

The reason for this relates to the fact that editors address everything that proofreaders do, but they also focus on other issues.

It is important to bear this difference in mind if you are working to a tight deadline, especially because the longer turnaround times for editing services may be unworkable for you.

 

Is collaboration necessary?

Collaborating with a proofreader is rarely necessary. This is because the proofreading process is generally the same irrespective of the document.

Editing, on the other hand, often benefits from close collaboration between the professional editor and the author. This is because there are different types of editing, each of which has a different scope and level of comprehensiveness.

For example, if you need your editor to revise the structure of your document, it may be important to collaborate with them by showing them examples of this type of thing you are looking for.

 

A final note

If you have never worked with a professional editor or proofreader before, the process of finding a trained expert who you trust with your work can be overwhelming. For this reason, before you order any writing-related services, it is well worth checking online reviews, asking your peers for recommendations, and communicating directly with the professional or their employer.