My experience as a developmental editor is grounded in having taught the genres of academic writing, and self-reflexively analyzed every aspect of the writing process to experiment with my own scholarly voice since 2005. Throughout, I have worked consistently with colleague-friends in writing groups, exchanging manuscripts from conference papers and journal articles to full book manuscripts at all stages of development. With them, I’ve learned how to best give feedback that can support others in shaping their ideas and tightening their prose as they move their work from draft to submission.

I have also served as a peer reviewer for University of Virginia Press and Rutgers University Press to evaluate manuscripts as well as academic journals including archipelagos, Anthurium, and small axe, among others. I therefore have an intimate sense of the other side of the manuscript submission process. In my work as a developmental editor, I work with manuscripts before the line edit or copy edit stages—typically, when the author is completing a version of their full draft in preparation for peer review, or when the author is working through revisions of their draft after peer review. I therefore read your work with an eye to provide suggestions towards :

  • structural revisions to eliminate redundancies as well as strengthen concepts;

  • signposting your argument and aligning it with evidence throughout the manuscript;

  • stabilizing your nomenclature to support cohesive prose;

  • engaging the field through citational politics that reflect your scholarly values.

It is one of my greatest professional joys to work with the genres of academic writing so that they can house our most experimental, brilliant, and heart-held ideas, and I look forward to collaborating with you in this shared aim.

developmental editing: book manuscript

contact for pricing

I analyze your book manuscript in its totality with an eye towards argument, structure and conceptual organization, and voice. I highlight patterns in vocabulary, syntax, and paragraph structure in terms of how they can best develop your argumentation. You receive an initial consultation call about the kind of feedback you want at this juncture of your project; a pdf mark-up of the document; a detailed memo synthesizing the mark-ups into remarks about the strengths and challenges of the document, as well as an outline for a provisional plan for revision; a one-hour call to discuss revision suggestions and implementation.

developmental editing : keynote and job talk presentations

pricing : $250 flat fee

I analyze your manuscript and all visual presentational materials with an emphasis on argument, structure and conceptual organization, and voice as appropriate for oral presentation. You receive an initial one-hour video call where you read and present your talk to me and discuss the kind of feedback you want at this juncture of your project; following that, you receive a pdf mark-up of the document; a detailed memo synthesizing the mark-ups into remarks about the strengths and challenges of the document, as well as an outline for a provisional plan for revision.

developmental editing : chapters, journal articles

pricing : $150 per hour, excluding initial consultation call.

I analyze your manuscript with an eye towards argument, structure and conceptual organization, and voice. I highlight patterns in vocabulary, syntax, and paragraph structure in terms of how they can best develop your argumentation. You receive an initial consultation call about the kind of feedback you want at this juncture of your project; a pdf mark-up of the document; a detailed memo synthesizing the mark-ups into remarks about the strengths and challenges of the document, as well as an outline for a provisional plan for revision.