Academic editing requires familiarity not only with the conventions of monographs, articles, and research documents, but also familiarity with university and scholarly presses, peer review processes, and the unique challenges of writing in an academic environment.
In other words, good academic editing requires someone who has been there and done that and lived to tell about it.
And great academic editing requires someone who has crafted an empathetic, anti-racist editing practice in direct conversation with—and in resistance to—all the toxicity and stultifying effects of poorly managed departments, exhausting job searches, and inequitable distribution of responsibilities.
To that end, my academic editing:
- focuses on social-justice oriented, interdisciplinary humanities texts that both capture and challenge readers;
- takes an empathetic, rejuvenating, and holistic approach to feedback, aiming to ask generative questions and make suggestions that inspire creative thought and sparkling revisions;
- recognizes when you are the best person to write the text at hand, and invests in raising your voice, strengthening your argument, and valuing your lived experience;
- bears in mind that there is a person behind the text, and that the authors of world-changing texts are often (multiply) marginalized and balancing transparency and vulnerability against high-pressure expectations and gatekeeping.
Editing Types
I offer three different academic editing services.
I also know all about the significant challenges of balancing a teaching load with committee meetings, office hours, conferencing, grant applications, and—dare I say it—personal life.
Therefore, my academic editing also:
- takes into account your priorities, asks, and quality/frequency of writing time;
- doesn’t create extra, unnecessary work for you, but rather gets right down into problems and possible solutions;
- prioritizes clarity, so you know exactly what to do when you sit down to the work of revision;
- encourages you at every possible turn.
If that all sounds like the kind of editor you want and the type of work you’re doing, please contact me!
If you’re looking for a bit more information before you send that email
I work on all manner of academic texts, including—but not limited to:
- journal articles
- book chapters
- book proposal packages
- monographs
- grant applications
- teaching philosophies
- job letters and talks
- conference papers
- public intellectual engagements (like blog posts, presentations, and long-form journalism)
Notably missing from the above list: dissertations. In this, I’m in the same camp as Pamela Haag, author of Revise: “As a matter of principle, I don’t work on dissertations before they’re approved.”
That said, I’m not going to throw you to the wolves. While I firmly believe the work for the degree must be entirely your own, I am perfectly happy to coach you on more general matters like project initiation/completion, research organization, the goals of good academic narrative, and defense preparation. I can also act as an advisor, sounding back to you the parts of your project you are most excited about and helping you consider the structure and organization for the argument you want to make.
And once you’ve passed—huzzah!—I will absolutely help you turn that dissertation into a first book.
I also work on all sorts of fields in the interdisciplinary humanities, from political science to international studies, sociology to human geography, history to media studies. And I enjoy engaging with theory of all kinds, particularly queer theory, critical race theory, and actor network theory.
But if you’re looking for a subject matter expert, here are my specific fields:
- actor network theory
- adult learning theory
- bioethics
- British history, 1600 to the present
- classification theory
- European enlightenment, empire, and decolonization
- gender studies
- historiography
- history of masculinity
- history of medicine
- history of mental health
- medical humanities
- philosophy of teaching history
- science & technology studies (STS)
- queer studies
- world history
Lodestar Editing & Coaching 