Proofreading service or editing service

Proofreading services or editing services? 

Many students often ask about the difference between proofreading and editing in order to be able to decide which one to go for when they need to have their academic papers and journals professionally and academically examined before submission. 

Below is a quick overview of what makes proofreading different from editing: 

Proofreading 

 
• Simpler

Proofreading a text that has already been written is mostly of a simple nature. This means that the proofreader focuses mainly on three things in the text: grammar, punctuation and spelling.

It is essentially the job of the proofreader to remove any errors related to grammar, punctuation or spelling. The spelling could simply be a word that is misspelt, or a word that is written in American English when it is in fact needed to the British variant. 

 
• Less time-consuming

Given that the key focus of the proofreader is the three aspects mentioned above, it should not take a proofreader a long time to be able to complete a proofreading job, unless the document is massively long or the writer’s standard of English is extremely poor. 

 
1. Less costly

Given the time and effort put into proofreading, it certainly comes at a lower cost than editing which takes a lot more time, particularly if the text written needs significant improvements and changes.