SEE ACADEMIC DOCUMENTS:
“talk-plus-walk,” The Challenge of Scholar-Activism
Journal of Leadership, Equity, and Research, 6(1), 2020
ABOUT ME
(Hi, I'm not taking new clients at this time. You can still write to me. Thank you.) I’m a developmental editor and writing coach for academics. I help academic writers complete and successfully publish their work. I work with both early-career and mid-career scholars (Ph.D. & Ed.D.). My editorial service includes an assessment of your text and a comprehensive plan for revision. I elevate your work by bringing clarity, strength, and structure to your text, ensuring you have a powerful argument, a critical analysis, and a distinctive and compelling voice.
At this time, I only edit scholarly journal manuscripts.
For scholars at the earlier stages of the writing process, I am available to serve as a sounding board as you conceptualize your manuscript, including the preparation of your book proposal. For career scholars, I make sure you meet submission deadlines with a strong and publishable manuscript.
I’ve published widely and am the author of Manufacturing Hope and Despair: The School and Kin Support Networks of U.S.-Mexican Youth (Teachers College Press, 2001). I am a Stanford trained sociologist, with past lives as a university professor and an elementary school teacher.
Let’s have a chat. Contact me to schedule a 30min complementary call to discuss your project.
DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING
In the words of Strawberry Saroyan, an American journalist and author, “A developmental editor is someone who can take a ‘helicopter’ view of your entire piece of writing and give you a specific sense of what’s working, what’s not…” The end product is a comprehensive revision plan. At this time, I only edit scholarly journal and book manuscripts.
A full structural edit includes identifying the various theses contained in your chapters and ensuring that they all orbit around a unifying main argument. I pay particular attention to the clarity and precision of your theoretical framework; this chief interpretive instrument includes the theory or theories you’ve selected, as well as the constructs and propositions that drive your analyses.
As your developmental editor, my work moves back and forth between the analytical aspects of your text to the mechanics of your writing, the latter of which can involve rearranging, deleting, adding, and rewording of entire pages and chapters.
I am your partner in publication. I make sure that your manuscript conveys the importance, perhaps even the urgency, of your scholarship. Together, we highlight the contribution your work is making to your field or discipline.
START WORKING WITH AN EDITOR EARLY IN YOUR WRITING
Note that some authors wish to use the services of a developmental editor earlier on in their writing to help create the architectural blueprints for their book or article; this service underscores the fact that “development” is truly at the heart of what we do.