My Copy Editing Services: Copy editing and "teaching" through comments

My Copy Editing Services (contact me: kchoo7@gmail.com)

This is a description of my copy editing process for most writings:

Before I returned the document that I have copy edited, I would have gone through the client's original document twice -

First revision.

1.   I make changes to the writing to improve clarity of meaning and phrasing.

2.   In other instances, when the meaning of the writing is unclear, I will insert comments and queries for the client in a blue font, which are highlighted in yellow, thus making these passages far easier to read. 

This aspect is a particularly important part of my work on academic writings: Apart from clarifying the writing of the clients, I also provide teaching points and suggestions to help them to re-think their approach and their arguments.

Second revision.

3.   I review my own editing work to remove any additional errors that I had not caught in the first reading, as well as mistakes in my own corrections.

4.    As the copy is ‘cleaner’ after my first revision and I do have an understanding of the entire piece, the second revision will also be helpful for me to look at the document from a "big-picture" perspective and provide additional insights to the client.

Due to a bug that I had experienced with the "Track Changes" function in Word (which seems to be triggered by copy-pasted text from some other sources and leads to the rearrangement of letters in the text and renders words into gibberish), I will no longer be using this function. 

Here is my workaround solution: 

I will be sending back two documents: 

Document 1 (the version that I copy edited) will contain changes that I have made directly to the text (changes will not be highlighted or noticeable). Comments will be inserted in blue font and highlighted in yellow to stand out from the text.

Document 2 will be a merged document: it combines your original document and my copy edited version, thus showing up all the changes I have made in "Track Changes" mode. 

In case there are any bugs, my copy edited version that is not in the "Track Changes" mode will still contain the changes that I have made and can be compared with the merged document. This is thus a safeguard.

Please feel free to query me about my workaround solution. This is the best thing I can do, as I cannot be sure when my clients might have copy-pasted passages from sources (Internet/PDF articles) that could trigger this bug.

Editing and Charges

My rates for the editing process are as follows (as of June 2014):

Copy editing of academic and commercial writings: SGD0.075/word (based on the word count of the original document).

Intensive copy editing of academic and commercial writings: SGD75/hour. Please query me for more information.

Rewriting of commercial writings: SGD0.15–0.30/word. 

My Charges and Approach

The charge-per-word approach allows clients to know what the total cost would be. Based on the number of words and my existing workload, I would provide an estimated timeframe for the deadline. I can either return the document section by section, or in entirety.

With clients based in Singapore, I typically ask for a 50% payment up front in the case of individual clients. Due to the nature of the work, in which I may not meet my clients in person, the payment approach is based on a sharing of trust:

In paying for the work up front, you trust that I will perform the task. On my part, I recognise that you are serious about having me do your work.

Once the payment is received, I will send a receipt to the client via email and proceed to do the work.

When I have emailed the edited text (upon completion), I will issue an invoice — the payment period is seven days to provide time for the review of my work. At this point, I have to trust that the client will make payment for the remainder of the editing work done.

Thus far, my experiences with private clients have been positive. I hope that it will continue so that I can maintain this practice.

With clients based overseas (not in Singapore), I will ask for 100% payment up front in the case of individual clients. Payment will be made via Paypal. Please note that the client will be responsible for all Paypal fees. (I will provide the estimate of the fees.) 

Once the payment is received, I will send a screenshot of the actual amount I have received from Paypal (after Paypal fees have been deducted) as a confirmation of the payment received.