Background

I set up the Academic Proofreading Service in 2008 when I was supervising MSc students at Manchester Business School and heard about the difficulties of finding a good proofreader.  When I read my students' final dissertations, which had supposedly been proofread, I found they were still full of basic English language mistakes, and consequently very difficult to read and assess.  As their supervisor I was well aware of the amount of academic work they had put into their projects, but as an examiner, this was not coming across in their written work.  I realised that there was a gap in the market for a native English speaker with not only proofreading skills, but also the ability to understand the academic work they were proofreading.

I started out by advertising my service to students in management, finance and economics, by putting up posters in the business or management schools of local universities, such as Manchester Business School, Manchester Metropolitan University, Salford University, the University of Central Lancashire and Lancaster University Management School.  Since then, through word of mouth, I have also worked for students and academics across the UK (Durham University, Bangor University, and others) and the world (University of Piraeus, Greece).

I offer not simply a fast, accurate proofreading service, but a complete academic editing service.  I specialise in the fields of finance, management and economics because my background is in these areas.  After studying Mathematics at Oxford University, I did a PhD in Probability and Finance at the University of Bath and then worked in the banking industry for seven years as a Risk Manager.  While working in risk management I developed my skills in academic writing through writing up technical projects, such as preparing Basel II documents.  Through this, I learnt how to explain complex ideas with clarity.  I feel this is crucial to editing academic papers and dissertations, since examiners and reviewers often have only a limited amount of time to judge your work and can become impatient if your writing is difficult to read.

I now work for academics more than students, focusing on editing academic papers so that they can be submitted to journals with confidence.  My aim is to ensure your paper is free of any errors in English language, and is also easy to read, and comprehensible for reviewers.  In this way you can be sure that your paper will be judged according to your academic research, and not your English language skills.

I now offer translation from Italian to English as well as proofreading. If your first language is Italian and you would prefer to have your papers translated from Italian into English, contact me today for a free quote: emilyjstapleton@yahoo.co.uk