Editing Skills for Academics

This course will teach you the editing skills that will make your job easier. You will learn how to edit scholarly writing to ensure it is clear, concise and consistent, and can be readily understood by its target audience.

In addition, you’ll learn how to correctly prepare your own documents for publication and assist your colleagues and students more quickly and efficiently.

Course Overview:

The communication of ideas and research is a fundamental skill for academics and researchers. What is often overlooked is that while writing comprises one set of skills, editing comprises another distinct set.

Academics are constantly required to not only edit their own work for dissemination and publication but also assist their students and colleagues with manuscripts, papers and grants. Though there are plenty of opportunities to hone writing skills, academics often lack the specific training needed to edit efficiently and effectively.

The aim of this course is to provide academics and postgraduate students with both the core skills needed to edit and format scholarly writing and an understanding of editing principles and best practices (including how to give useful and actionable feedback to students and colleagues).

To ensure this course is relevant to everyone seeking to acquire these skills, it includes advice for British, Australian and US English, with exercises and answers provided in British and Australian English, and US English. We have included instructions for both Windows (Office 365) and Mac (Office for Mac) operating systems.

Course Outline:

We designed this course to be completed in six weeks, with one lesson per week. Each lesson contains a video, course readings, exercises and their answers, and a recommended reading list.

However, six weeks is only a suggestion, and it will not suit everyone. This is your course—feel free to adapt it to suit you.