We’ve helped hundreds of academics get their work published by expressing their ideas in clear, precise English.
If you want your work to be accepted for publication, you need to convey your ideas in clear, concise English. Our academic editing service helps you get noticed for your research, not your mistakes.
Our professional editors take a deep dive into your document, ensuring it reads naturally and your ideas are conveyed logically throughout. We can also check citations and references in the style of your choice. Once we’re done, we’ll work through any queries together until you’re thrilled with the final draft.
We’ve worked on hundreds of different research topics and love nothing more than seeing our clients feature in top-ranking journals worldwide.
Editing is a hands-on review of the language in your document. Academic editors look at your writing from every angle – from your style and tone to the coherence of your structure and ideas.
Copyeditors usually work on the raw material before a document has gone to a designer, typesetter or publisher. This means changes can be implemented before the text is laid out, avoiding time-consuming adjustments later on.
Editing is often confused with proofreading, but the two are not the same. Proofreading is about ironing out the final creases before a document is published. Copyediting is a major overhaul; proofreading a final polish. Where budget and timings allow, we work in two phases: editing first, then proofreading once the document is in its final form.
Alongside professional editing services, we offer reference-checking, which ensures that your bibliography or reference list is consistent, complete and formatted in line with your chosen referencing style. We can also provide a specialist indexing service.
If your document has already been edited and you’re simply looking for a final polish, check out our professional proofreading services. For many projects, we provide both academic editing and proofreading.
Our academic editors improve all aspects of your language, including:
| 0 to 5,000 words | 1–2 working days |
|---|---|
| 5,001 to 10,000 words | 2–3 working days |
| 10,001 to 20,000 words | 4–5 working days |
| 20,001–50,000 words | 5–10 working days |
| 50,000+ words | to be agreed |
These estimated turnaround times will give you a sense of how long copyediting will take. If you have a specific deadline to meet let us know – we’ll always do our best to fit in with your timings.
The secret to making our clients happy? Our team. We love what we do – which is probably why we excel at it. With our in-house team of experts and a wider network of specialists, we get the very best talent on your project.
Thank you again for all your work in pulling together a fine report. It is no mean feat given the many different voices you had to bring together. Thanks for your flexibility, patience and good humour throughout the process.
Tate & Clayburn were fantastic to work with. Rosie has meticulous attention to detail, we felt in very safe hands. She project-managed our report from start to finish, leading on copywriting, editing, proofing, design and print management. We would have no hesitation in working with her again; it felt like having another member of our core team throughout the project.
I highly recommend Tate & Clayburn for any copy editing or proofreading work. We have dealt with a number of staff in the organisation and each time I have been extremely pleased with the level of customer excellence, interpersonal nature and of course, their technical skills.
We often send large volumes of work, which always need a quick turnaround and we have never been let down by Tate & Clayburn – they have always stuck to deadlines, if not delivered ahead of. They make it very easy to work with them.
Working with Tate & Clayburn has made a very complex process and project so simple for my team. Tate & Clayburn’s close work and oversight to produce the reports, including their understanding of the details that are important, and the cross-cultural challenges that are presented in the process, has allowed us to focus on larger relationships and projects because we know that the reports are in great hands. They’ve been an extension of our team for not only these reports but additional projects that have popped up; their understanding of our complex space and outside perspective has been invaluable to our organization. Simply put: Tate & Clayburn has made much of the work of BGCEL possible and we are grateful for our collaborative partnership.
We have collaborated with Tate & Clayburn for many years on translation and copyediting. They are always a joy to work with – extremely responsive and reliable, adaptable to different styles and delivering work to an exceptionally high standard. Everything we receive is precise, clear and always on (or ahead of!) schedule. We would highly recommend their services.
It is a real pleasure to work with you all and we can’t wait to continue collaborating with you. In addition to being highly skilled, creative and always on time, it is a real pleasure to exchange with you all.
The article is now conditionally accepted for publication. The edits were very useful; thanks for the great work you deliver year after year!
I am so grateful for your work and how you have managed to improve the text. The tone is spot on and the level of detail of your corrections is excellent. The comments really help!
Tate & Clayburn exceeded expectations. Their clear communication and focus on our specific needs instilled confidence from the start. Even with tight deadlines, their turnaround times were impressive. Their edits were spot-on – sharp, clear, and perfectly captured our brand voice in the annual report.
We’re used to absorbing complex style guides in a flash. Just send us your guidelines and we’ll make sure your document adheres to these.
The work and personal data you share with us are treated as strictly confidential. All our expert editors are fully vetted and have signed a contract and non-disclosure agreement. We never share your details or documents with third parties, and we delete data once they are no longer needed. To find out more, please see our privacy policy.
All varieties! We most commonly work in British, American, Canadian and Australian English, but we’ll adapt to whatever preferences you have.
We work with all kinds of files. We most commonly edit in MS Word as changes can be easily tracked, but we also work in Google Docs, PDFs, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, LaTeX, InDesign and most other file types that are sent our way.
We’ve helped hundreds of academic clients in a wide range of fields to publish their research. When we’re editing academic writing, our focus is on ensuring the language is clear and accessible. That said, we work with subject matter experts if further expertise is needed. Tell us about your subject area, and we’ll find the very best editor for the job.
Once we’ve finished editing your document, we’ll send it back in the format of your choice. If it’s a file type that supports tracked changes (such as MS Word or Google Docs), our suggestions and comments will be clearly marked up in the document.
Of course, if you have any questions after we’ve sent you the final document, we’re more than happy to answer them.
We do everything we possibly can to correct all errors in a document. We hire only experienced editors with a keen eye for detail, and we have a strict quality assurance policy in place.
We’re also certified for compliance with globally recognised quality management standard ISO 9001:2015, which means we place customer satisfaction and quality at the heart of everything we do. Despite all of this, human error is still possible and we can’t guarantee 100% accuracy. Read more about our approach to quality.
We calculate the cost of editing and proofreading based on the number of words in your document and the amount of work involved (for example, a heavy copyedit will cost more than a light proofread as more work is involved in reworking the document).
Send us your document and deadline (or a sample of your text and the total word count) and we’ll get back to you with a free, speedy and precise quote. If you’re not sure whether you need our editing or proofreading service, we’ll be happy to advise.
All documents you send us are edited by humans, not machines. AI tools are impressive but they cannot rival the quality, thoughtfulness and confidentiality of work by human editors. We use handy, non-AI-driven editing tools that act as an extra safety net to pick up mistakes – but the core work is always done by a human editor.
Don’t worry in the least! For most of our academic clients, we liaise directly with the finance department to sort out the admin, so you can focus on the research side of things.
If you put us in touch with the relevant team, we’ll work through the supplier registration, quoting and invoicing process with them. Just let us know how you prefer to work and we’ll fit in with you.
Generally speaking, editing, copyediting and copy-editing are different terms for the same service: they all aim to take your text to the next level. That said, we also offer more extensive editing services for when your project needs a complete rethink. To discuss all the editorial magic we can work on your document, get in touch for a free consultation.
Our human experts go through a rigorous vetting process and have vast experience.
We put customer service at the heart of everything we do and continually strive to improve.
We fit into your schedule without compromising on quality.
