Stop Asking for a Copy Editor! What You Really Need is a Developmental Editor [Part 2]

[Everything You Never Wanted to Know about Developmental Editing, But Should]

So if the last post resonated with you, and you suspect you might need to procure a developmental editor for your manuscript, you can read on to get a sense of what it’s like to work with a developmental editor, what the process may look like for you, and how much it might cost [not as much as you might think].

WHAT IS IT LIKE, WORKING WITH A DEVELOPMENTAL EDITOR?

You don’t have to go it alone. Get a professional. Reach your goals faster.

When you bring on a developmental editor, know that you are inviting someone to question the very basis of the paper.

Developmental editors work at the same level as reviewers do, but without the subject area knowledge.

We have a keen eye for coherence and logic, a well honed notion of how arguments should proceed, and plenty of strategies and tools tucked away to help you dig out your best theorizing and contributions to the field.

Get Support. Get a Developmental Editor.

You don’t have to go it alone. Get a professional. Reach your goals faster.

You should expect your developmental editor to challenge everything (concepts, arguments, definitions, arrangement of ideas, the basis of your theorizing, the way you’ve done your literature review, the style you use in citing references, the headings, the title, the story - everything), in the service of the paper and your best ideas.

Sometimes, you haven’t actually had your best ideas UNTIL you have been challenged.

So it’s our job to ask pointed and piquant questions that may seem like a whole lot more work at first, but which will bring out the best in you and your manuscript.

HOW IS THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING DIFFERENT TO COPY EDITING?

Because of the greater involvement of the editor, and because it is significantly more effective to explain what we mean by talking than by writing it in comments on the side of the document, we jump on Zoom.

There are two ways to work, and which one you pick will depend on how much support you are looking for/need.

HEAVY SUPPORT

We meet on a weekly or fortnightly basis on Zoom, and work on the text together in the session itself.

You may find that peculiar, and time consuming, but with one particular client, after 4 sessions on Zoom, she had completely re-thought her paper, how she was positioning herself against the literature, what her actual contributions were, and which theories she was going to use.

So, in four sessions, she had breathed new life into a paper that had been rejected, was sitting in her drawer, and which was really dear to her. All without the involvement of her co-author.

With another client who was sole author on a project, we produced a working manuscript from a very very rough draft [read “ideas”] in a matter of 8 sessions spanning 6 months. She submitted to the journal, and now has an R&R.

We meet as often and for as long as is needed for you to feel confident to take over and submit!

LIGHTER SUPPORT

You may not feel stuck, but you may know you have issues with your flow and your story, but don’t know how to fix them.

In this case, you can send the developmental editor your manuscript in an advanced draft stage, and after an initial assessment, we meet a Zoom to discuss the issues and some strategies to move forward.

The next step is for you to work on the identified problems, and either schedule another Zoom to check in and iron out further top-level problems or return the manuscript to us for language editing, as needed.

The cycle of meeting and writing is limited to two or three sessions at most.

I NEED A DEVELOPMENTAL EDIT! HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?

You’re going to hate my answer: it depends.

As you can probably tell by now, each project is its own world and for the project to be successful, editors have to meet the specific demands of the client, project, funds, journal requirements, and good editorial practice. All these factors contribute to the fees.

Suffice to say, an editor can only really provide a quote after understanding your needs and assessing the manuscript.

To give you some idea, though, fees can range from SGD 1000 [currently Euro 713 / USD 711] to SGD 2500 [Euro 1785 / USD 1777]. They could also easily be lower or higher, so it’s really best to just give me a shout here and get a real figure: https://www.mehtatext.com/contact