If you’re here, you’ve done much hard work already: research, conceptual brainstorming, outlining, drafting. Congratulations on reaching a point where you’d like to get an editor’s perspective on your work!

I offer editing services to authors at a couple different stages of the writing process. This page provides a quick primer on the two types of editing I offer, called developmental editing and line editing. It also includes information on inquiring about my services and, if desired, hiring me.

Developmental editing (also sometimes called structural or substantive editing) addresses “big-picture” questions about a manuscript. A developmental editor may be helpful to anyone who is still in the process of establishing an argument, creating an organizational framework, identifying key concepts, etc. For example, perhaps you have a sense of the ideas most central to your project but are struggling to organize them around a central claim that will resonate with your intended audience. Or maybe you’re still working to find the narrative thread that connects individual chapters to the project’s overarching themes. As a developmental editor, I work to bring greater organizational clarity, narrative interest, and argumentative power to your manuscript. This collaboration is one of my favorite parts of being an editor; it is rewarding to be entrusted with a writer’s vision for their project and to assist in realizing that vision.

Line editing attends to paragraph- and sentence-level writing issues—from clarity of prose to alignment between style and intended audience. While developmental editing involves assessment of fundamental structural, narrative, and thematic aspects of a manuscript, line editing is a logical next step in the process—a line-by-line evaluation of the presentation of ideas after larger conceptual questions have been addressed. This may include identifying terminology that an author has not adequately defined for readers; suggesting that they incorporate examples to illustrate a particular claim; advising that they consider the interests and expertise of multiple possible reading communities; adding framing language to more effectively emphasize a key point; and adjusting prose for narrative and stylistic consistency. I have loved working as a line editor to advise hundreds of authors on effective modes of expression for the readerships they seek to reach and this continues to be one of the most gratifying aspects of my job.

I invite you to learn about my rates and the process of working with me. I enjoy adapting my services to the needs and priorities of each individual author, and always seek to develop an editing plan that best serves the manuscript.