So you’ve finished drafting your PhD thesis. Congratulations! PhD theses are long, and hard. These documents represent several years of your life, the fruit of all your intelligence and labour, and the glimmer of future success. It is almost an understatement to say they are important.
Having finished your draft, you will submit it to your supervisor, and then redraft it, and then repeat several times, show it to your friends and family and colleagues, redraft it and edit it yourself, and so on. At some point in this process – preferably near the end – you should submit your work for professional PhD editing.
1) Presentation: It is important to submit work that is well presented, professional and error free. The easiest way to do so is to use our PhD editing service, so that our experienced editors can check over your whole document with fresh and expert eyes, and find and correct every last mistake, no matter how small.
2) Clarity of argument: It is easy when writing a thesis over the course of several years to get caught up the complexities of your argument and forget that not everyone who reads your work will know as much about it or its intellectual background as you do. Furthermore – and particularly if you are a second language speaker or have other difficulties with written English – it can often be difficult to express yourself as clearly and concisely as you might want. PhD editing can mitigate these issues: our editors will ensure that your prose conveys your argument with clarity and style.
3) Formatting: Many students struggle with formatting their work, particularly because universities often have idiosyncratic or confusing standards, and because multiple revisions of a large document can cause all sorts of weird kinks in Microsoft Word – and being an expert in Microsoft Word is not part of the training for most PhDs! PhD editing will make your thesis beautiful and format it in line with university guidelines.
4) Peace of mind: Anxiety before submission deadlines is very common, and entirely natural. There are so many things to worry about, and not a lot of feedback about whether they have been dealt with or not. One thing you can be certain about is that, after PhD editing, your thesis will be well expressed, well formatted and error free, leaving you to worry about more important things.
5) Save time: Reading and re-reading a 200-page document you have already read many times is incredibly time consuming, and, with submission deadlines looming, you will often have other things that need to be done, like checking your references, making last minute additions, or filling in the relevant paperwork. It is vital to have as much time as possible in which to complete these tasks, and PhD editing can give you that time, by alleviating the burden of the proofreading, editing and formatting processes.
6) References: Of the many fiddly and not particularly interesting tasks that you need to do before you submit your thesis, checking the referencing style and bibliography may be the most arduous. Again, it is the kind of task that benefits from fresh eyes and fresh expertise: often minor idiosyncrasies that seem natural to you will become obvious to a new editor. As with style and formatting, getting the references right is important for presenting yourself as a professional academic.
So there you have it: PhD editing can make your life easier and your work better, giving you the opportunity to focus all of your attention on the details that really matter, and thus helping you to achieve the success you deserve!
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