Are you making full use of your academic editor?
Editors improve text, sure. But the best ones do a lot more than that. One of the biggest advantages of working with an editor like me and my team members is the built-in benefit of having us as your long-term career allies. The more we work with you, the better we can understand and support your big-picture goals and success.
Why academics need career allies
Academia is becoming increasingly competitive. Many clients have mentioned to me that they’ve noticed a sharp decline in the collegiate atmosphere at their schools. It’s not always what people say or do; it’s what they don’t say or do. Many faculty members simply have less time and energy for each other and for things with no obvious benefit to them. It’s a trend that is bigger than academia, in my opinion, as everyone, everywhere seems to be burnt out, overworked, and competing for resources that feel increasingly scarce. As a result, emotional support and career guidance are rare assets for many academics.
Against this background, an editor becomes a powerful career ally.
Why editors make great allies
We’re emotionally invested in your success. I’ve never met an editor who doesn’t care if the document they edited succeeds or not; quite the opposite. We’re just as excited as you are to find out that paper got accepted or that application for funding was successful.
We deeply understand your work and goals. We know your writing, thinking, and objectives, and we understand them in a way that generative AI never could.
We widen your audience and impact. As objective, non-expert readers, we’ll catch those difficult concepts and undefined terms that restrict your audience to two or three of your fellow scholars—turning your expertise into something much more accessible and thus impactful.
We critique so you can create. With the work of honing and polishing taken off your plate, you’ll be amazed how much more time and energy you have for generating new ideas and papers. Leave the final stages of your submissions and resubmissions to us and get started on your next important project.
How can you maximize these benefits of working with us?
Tell us when we’ve missed the mark. Editors know better than anyone that improvement is a constant, iterative process and we want to know if there’s anything at all we can improve on (e.g., maybe we changed a misspelled word but in your specific area of expertise, that misspelling has a valid and specific meaning). Our support will get even better with your feedback.
Tell us if there’s something important to you (even if it doesn’t seem strictly relevant to the writing—for instance, important life changes, concerns, coauthor drama, tech issues with some part of the document, etc.). It’s highly likely that we can tailor our help to better reflect your needs.
Similarly, tell us if there’s anything we can do to make your life easier. From idea development to invoicing and dealing with your institution’s payments department, there are many project stages where the right editor can limit or facilitate tasks for you.
Lastly, if you’ve had the awful experience of working with any editor who made you feel distinctly unsupported—maybe even judged or denigrated—I’m so sorry. It’s an unfortunate reality that a few of these snark-peddlers have crept into the editing profession, attracted by the possibility of wielding a red pen to assuage their own insecurities. When you’re ready, I hope you’ll consider bringing your work to us instead. Although we aim to make your life easier with transformational changes you can trust (rather than suggestions you have to implement yourself), we always hold you as the ultimate authority on your own writing—just think of us as your skilled support staff!
On that note, I’d like to close with a comparison that occurred to me recently. A client was thanking me last month for some edits I’d made to his document (which ultimately became his first publication in AMJ), saying how I’d made him “sound so much smarter.” I was flattered but quick to correct him: we don’t make our clients “sound smart” any more than a barber “makes people look good”—that’s all you! We just help reveal and highlight the brilliance that was already there. That’s the power of a collaborative career ally.
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