Heather Jane McWhinney
Expressing Hard Ideas Clearly: Academic Editing and Proofreading ... Articles Papers Grants Scholarships Theses Dissertations Statements Coaching
Structural editing
Stylistic editing
Copy editing and proofreading
Services
Articles, Theses, and Dissertations
Academic papers, theses, and dissertations demonstrate to your peers the value of your research. Clarity is required, but how can you be clear when writing about complex ideas and technical subjects? No matter the document or your discipline, I can help you to express hard ideas in a clear and concise way. Over my 30-year career, I have edited hundreds of academic works from a wide range of disciplines, including environmental science, nursing, food science, Indigenous history, and public policy. Check out a partial list of these documents under “Portfolio.”
Coaching
Are you looking for someone who can help you improve your academic writing? I have taught academic and scientific writing to thousands of students from a variety of fields, including engineering, pharmacy, sociology, political science, and policy studies. I have also coached many individual faculty members and students, including those for whom English is an additional language. Simply send your paper to me, and we will go over it together via Zoom, an outstanding coaching platform. I will help you improve your writing by pointing out areas of weakness and sending you videos and other resources tailored to your unique writing issues.
Grant Applications, Statements, and Tenure and Promotion Documents
I have helped numerous students and professors write successful grant and scholarship applications, statements, and tenure and promotion documents. The best submissions are engaging, focused, disciplined, and written in plain English. Most drafts I see require both a stylistic edit and a copy edit. It’s my job to help you eliminate wordiness, reduce abstraction, craft engaging sentences, and ensure your application is letter perfect.
Latest News & Resources
Writing a Winning Scholarship Application
The fall term has barely started, and already graduate students are writing to me for advice on how to craft their scholarship applications. This blog provides some advice on how to prepare a successful application.
“This” what? Pairing “This” with a Noun
Have you ever read a sentence starting with “this” that perplexes you because you don’t know what “this” refers to? Sentences starting with “this” often confuse readers. The ambiguity occurs when the reader can’t identify the noun “this” replaces. I call “this” with no clear antecedent noun an orphaned “this.” Technically it’s known as a dangling demonstrative pronoun.
Decluttering Your Writing
Do you want to express hard ideas in crisp, powerful sentence? Even better, do you want to engage your readers? In this blog, I want to show you how to “declutter” your sentences, ejecting excess words and stripping the writing of unnecessary complexity. There once was a time when convoluted sentences and long words were the hallmark of academic sophistication. No longer. Writing plainly is the new requirement.
Latest Editorial Projects
Manuscripts Edited from 2018 - 2021
Rates
My rate for university professors is $65 per hour.
My rate for PhD students and postdoctoral fellows is $50 per hour.
Testimonials
Credentials
For my entire career, I’ve been immersed in academic writing and editing. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in English and a Master of Arts in Library Science, I worked in academic publishing, where I was Acquisitions Editor and later Publisher and Editorial Director for a large textbook publisher in Toronto. In 1999, I established my own business as a project manager and editor of nursing textbooks. In 2012, I completed my credentials for teaching English as a Second Language and then began teaching academic and scientific writing to graduate students at the University of Saskatchewan. Later, I became the university’s Graduate Writing Specialist. In this role, I coached individual students and gave numerous workshops across campus on how to craft theses and dissertations, journal papers, grant and scholarship applications, and statements.
I currently work part time at the University of Saskatchewan as Student Writing Advisor for the School of Environment and Sustainability. I am also Student Writing Advisor at the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, where I teach academic and professional writing courses.