What is a Certificate of Editing?

A lot of students and academicians writing their papers and dissertations have one major concern when they give their document for editing; a certificate of editing. This is a concern for many reasons: since your thesis/dissertation is the foundation of your degree or academic qualification, your content has to be your own and original. This is why if it has been edited, even if it’s for grammar and punctuation, it’s ideal to have a certification that confirms the same. An editing certificate confirms that your manuscript, paper, books, or any other material was proofread and edited by one or two editing experts.

Usually, an editing certificate will contain a unique editing certificate number. So while submitting your journal article, for example, you can submit a copy of the editing certificate that is proof that an English language expert evaluated the English grammar, punctuation, spelling, phrasing, and technical language. You don’t always need an editing certificate; this is usually the requirement from academic publications (journals) and dissertations.

A multitude of journal editors and book editors do however, require an editing certificate from ESL (English for Special Purposes). As an ESL author, you might struggle a little with English, even if your content is perfect and properly fleshed out. This could lead to you getting poor reviews on your journal article and ultimately rejection by a journal. Even native English writers may have their papers rejected due to grammar issues. Our editing certificate will provide proof to the journal editor that the language in your paper was perfected. Furthermore, the editor can focus on the content rather than the grammar when deciding if a paper should be sent out for peer-review.

An editing certificate will include the title of your paper (or report, thesis, book, etc.), the list of authors, certificate issue date, and a unique certificate number. Usually in the editing process, the following is done:

Copyediting — It is essentially an overall review of your document and is the least expensive form of editing. Some editors do tend to divide copyediting and line editing into 2 processes for the sake of convenience or more accuracy. Copyediting suggests checking the document for

• Wrong grammar
• Inconsistencies (both factual and grammar-related)
• Adherence to style and structure.

Proofreading is the last step of the process. The editors give the book a final stamp before sending it off for publication. For this reason, proofreading picks up only minor typos and inconsistencies in the book/article.