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thesis proof reading

P

just wondering what peoples thoughts/ experiences are of having your thesis proof-read. i am contemplating it but have a sneaky suspicion it may be rather expensive....

A

Your supervisors are there to comment on the subject matter/structure/validity of the thesis, and you could get a friend/fellow student/helpful post-doc/anyone vaguely literate to read through and spot typos/bad grammar for you. You shouldn't really need to get a paid proof-reader - I certainly don't know anyone who has.

V

firstly, it depends on whether English is your mother tongue. Secondly, how good is your writing. I definitely will give my thesis for proof-reading and know several people who have done it. It is not cheap but it is worth it.

P

english is my mother tongue but i still make mistakes! for instance things like spelling 'from' as 'form' arent picked up as spelling errors but are still wrong and i think we often get too close to the thesis to read it properly.
any ideas how much it costs?

V

If english is your mother tongue than proofreading will be cheaper for you:) Some people charge per hours, some per number of words, so in your case it would be cheaper to have someone charging per hour. Rates are very varied, I have heard from £200-500 per thesis. A suggestion from my experience-choose somebody who has been recommended to you by someone who has used that person's service. Otherwise it will be like with me- I paid for proofreading but both examiners still pointed out many grammar mistakes in thesis:(((((

P

wow that is a lot of money - i hope you managed to get some of it back verdy seeing as your proof reader clearly didnt do a good job!

S

if no-one will help you out and you don't want to pay for it, so you have to do it yourself, a trick is to proof-read from back to front.

ideally you could proof-read a friends thesis who would proof-read yours, if both of you are native english-speakers.

V

phder: no, I was too exchausted after MPhil that didnt have energy left to chase tht proofreader:)

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