Editing Service Update

Hi, everyone! It’s been three weeks since the GUPSA Editing Service started and I thought it would be good to let people know how it’s been going.

So far, I’ve met with 14 students – who have ranged from nursing to HR to economics students, to name a few – which has been very insightful. I have discovered, happily, that most students have very good writing skills already, and the common errors are those that even the most distinguished academics often make. To name some, these are writing in the passive voice (rather than the active); erroneous use of the comma; too many nominalisations or ‘ofness’; conversational/colloquial/cliched language; and repetition/redundancy. You can find a note on all of these on the GUPSA Editing Service webpage. It will help identify these problems so that you can know exactly what to avoid. Nevertheless, as I say, the writing has generally been of a very high standard, and I’m very impressed. The feedback sessions have been great too – with students getting a lot out of meeting up with me face to face and going through their papers. It’s a great time for students to ask questions (not only from their papers but just general grammar/structure/formatting questions). I have also enjoyed these sessions as it gives me a chance to pass on some of the knowledge that I have and try to help students pick up their own errors. It’s also been fascinating finding out about everyone’s varied and highly interesting research! I’m very humbled by the level and depth of study that people are undertaking. At the moment there are many slots available, so I look forward to receiving more submissions soon.

All the best, Evie