Your dissertation is a product of your labor. It is a product of months, if not years, of research. It goes to a committee for submission, and you will possibly even defend it before the same committee. So what is dissertation editing, and why would you want it?

You will publish your dissertation. Many consider your research to be your foray into your professional field. To say the least, it is a lot of pressure on you.

One way to lighten the weight is to enlist a second set of eyes to review your dissertation. A professional editor (more than a spouse, parent, or sibling) can do this with a necessary critical eye.

Every dissertation has essential parts of a research paper: an introduction, a body of text, a conclusion, and a bibliography.

What sets the dissertation apart is that the body includes your proposed study, a background to the problem, and a literature review.

Typically, a Dissertation Contains:

• a title page;
• an abstract;
• a table of contents;
• a list of figures and tables (if your dissertation includes these parts);
• the body of the text;
• the bibliography (or works cited, depending on your style guide); and
• Any appendices needed to contain your work’s supplementary information.

Each university or college may require different variations of these parts.

However, every dissertation includes an introduction, a body of text to explain the salient points, and the conclusion.

The body presents your results, along with any data, graphs, charts, or images that help support your work and viewpoint. 

The review includes all available literature about your topic and then synthesizes the pertinent information gleaned therein.

It is a lot of information for any one person to sift through. Thus, enlisting the help of a professional editor can be beneficial not just to the writing, but to you as well.

What is Dissertation Editing?

Hiring a professional editor ensures that the double and triple-checks necessary to publish your dissertation occur correctly.

• Your bibliography matches your style guide (whether it is a universal style guide, one given to you by your school, or both). Your in-text citations also conform to the bibliography.
• Each chart, graph, and table enclosed in your report is formatted.
• The entire paper follows the appropriate style guide(s) as well.

In addition to the style guide, a professional editor ensures your introduction and conclusion support your dissertation’s salient points.

Your editor checks your work for grammar and punctuation, in addition to making sure that all of your transitions (from paragraph to paragraph and from each section to the next) are clear and easy to understand.

All of these things, when done with a critical eye, help to ensure both your and your dissertation’s success.

Editing your work is never easy, but the professional dissertation editors at FirstEditing.com are available to help you. As professional editors, we get to review many dissertations before they are ultimately submitted and then published.

Professional editors, especially those with academic expertise, can review each section of your dissertation and polish it to perfection. Editors are exceedingly important to academic documents, which always adhere to a style guide.

Professional editors can make sure that no detail of your dissertation goes without attention. Some of the style guides that professional editors have expertise in are APA, MLA, Chicago (also known as CMS), and the Harvard style of citation.

Hiring a Professional Editor

In addition to grammar, spelling, and punctuation, a professional editor ensures that your introduction clearly presents your thesis statement.

Professional editing services also review your conclusion so that it ties your paper together, restating the thesis and summarizing the pertinent information.

Enlist the help of a professional to edit your in-text citations and bibliography references in your document. These must be according to the style guide that governs your paper.

In short, professional editors make sure that you present your dissertation as clearly as possible. With so much riding on your academic work, it is best to trust an editor to help you make the best impression.

The professional academic editors at FirstEditing.com are always available to assist you with your dissertation.

Originally posted 8/20/2010 and happily updated 10/29/2017. Thanks for reading!