When I was at the
Plagiarism Advice conference
in the UK recently, the role of professional editors in doctoral theses
came up in a discussion.
I was taken aback by the surprise expressed by
my UK counterparts that such a thing could be possible, even perfectly
respectable, in Australia. It made me reflect (yet again!) on what best
serves the candidate and the academy in this respect.
The Deans and Directors of Graduate Studies (DDOGs) and the Institute
of Professional Editors (IPEd) in Australia agreed on a set of
guidelines for professional editing of theses in 2001. These have since
been updated to take into account current digital technologies in order
to allow editors to use track changes on theses. The details are
available on their
website.
Some myths about doctoral writing and editing
Editing is mostly for international students who use English as an Additional Language (EAL)
Of course, for those students who are struggling with English grammar
and sentence structure, an editor can tidy up their writing to ensure
that the reader is not distracted by surface details of expression.
Research by
Mullins and Kiley and
Carter into
the examination of theses has shown that carefully proofed, polished
documents are received well by examiners. Many people find it hard to
notice errors in their own work, so this is an advantage for all
students, not just EAL students.
PhD students are already good writers
We know perfectly well
that some PhD students are already experienced writers, but others have
not previously written long documents. Achieving high grades in exams
focusing on multiple choice and short answer questions as an
undergraduate requires very different skills from presenting a sustained
argument over the course of a whole thesis.
Even for those presenting a
thesis by publication with a series of journal-length papers, the
expectations of this level of writing can be somewhat mysterious. And
then again, some students are comfortable communicating through formulae
or diagrams, but struggle when it comes to writing prose.
Supervisors know how to help students develop their writing skills over the course of candidature
Certainly, some supervisors have an excellent understanding of how to
teach writing, but others ‘correct’ their students’ writing without
being able to articulate the grammatical or stylistic principles
underlying the changes.
Students can happily accept those changes, but
do not necessarily in the process learn to be better writers without
direct instruction about why the supervisors’ suggestions are better
than their first attempt.
Certainly some students will improve their
own writing when
working this way,
but others need rather more. Lots of students and supervisors also tell
me that supervisors simply don’t have time to focus on writing
development for individual students.
But how much editing is too much?
The concerns expressed by my colleagues at the conference seemed to
stem from anxiety that the editor might intervene in the writing too
much, so that it was no longer the student’s own work. This is where the
Guidelines mentioned above can be very helpful.
The appropriate level
of intervention is clearly spelt out there in relation to copyediting
(clarity of expression, grammar, spelling, punctuation) and proofreading
(checking for consistency, ensuring everything is complete, including
accuracy in references).
Professional editors should not comment on
substance and structure, which is the domain of the supervisors and the
students themselves. The details of what is included under each of these
headings can be found in the
Australian Standards for Editing Practice.
It would be interesting to hear about your experiences with academic
editors - what has been most useful, and what has been disappointing
(hopefully any negative experiences have been disappointing rather than
devastating!).
Dr Robert Muller is an experienced professional editor. Robert operates a Specialist Editing Service, working with you on improving your written communication on PhD, Masters and
Honours theses, academic papers for journal publication, student
assignments, and commercial publications. All editing is conducted by Dr Robert
Muller, well-published author, experienced editor and retired academic: http://tutoringtoexcellence.blogspot.com
