Substantive Editing for Cultural Anthropologists and Humanities Scholars

Substantive editing is heavy copyediting combined with content feedback. It involves edits that improve style, remove redundancies, refine voice, and declutter the manuscript. It is ideal either before or after the peer review process. I can edit to the Chicago Manual of Style (US) or New Hart's Rules (UK).

The content (developmental) feedback this service offers differentiates it from standard copyediting services. Because the edits are heavy, substantive editing best suits workflows where the publisher will provide a light copyedit and/or proofread after you submit the text.

I offer substantive editing services for:

academic books (especially monographs)
academic journal articles
academic book proposals

Please note: I do not edit assessed work of any kind, and I do not edit research or job application materials. I edit books, book proposals, and journal articles only.

Substantive editing

This service includes:

A combination of line/copyediting and developmental editing (two passes)
First, I line edit the manuscript for clarity, style, readability, and accuracy.
I apply editorial style (Chicago Manual of Style or UK style)
I'll fix in-text author date references and copyedit footnotes, but I won't style or format the reading list or footnote references.
On a second read-through, I include any content feedback on issues I notice. I focus on smaller issues (transition sentences, opportunities to insert a sentence to make a point or argument clearer) rather than big-picture structural fixes—if you need the latter, you can book a developmental edit instead
I can also just offer line/copyediting if that's all you need.

Price: £45 per 1000 words

Recent books I've worked on as a developmental or stylistic editor_

Dr. Leandra Bias, University of Bern

Andrew's detailed review crucially supported me in making decisions about how much and which work I was ready to do on the proposal and what publishers would be suitable. Within two weeks of revising the proposal based on his feedback I got two major UK university presses interested in reviewing my manuscript!

Dr. Pavel Brunssen, Heidelberg University

I have worked repeatedly with Dr. Hodges on scholarly manuscripts, and each project has been a huge success. His editing skills are tremendous! His meticulous eye for details and his scholarly background make him my favorite editor.

Talal Mohammad, St Antony's College, University of Oxford

Thanks to Andy's great editorial skills, quick turnaround time, and going the extra mile to read my work, my monograph gained immense praise from authorities in the field.

More recently, an article Andy evaluated made it into one of the top current affairs magazines.

Dr. Barbara Turk-Niskac, ZRC SAZU

In an ideal academic world, colleagues would foster a supportive environment, providing reciprocal assistance with writing projects. In real life, there´s Andrew. I now feel much more confident about my book project and am prepared to submit it to publishers.

Check out my editing manifesto:

Editing Otherwise

HHi, I'm Dr. Andrew Hodges. I set up the Narrative Craft in 2019 with a mission to help scholars engaging with Anglo-American academia to make confident, informed choices about how to navigate these systems and communicate their ideas clearly.

My approach is honest, direct, kind, and supportive. Unlike peer review, there is no gatekeeping here—I'm solely invested in helping you improve your writing and arguments.

Since 2019, I've worked with hundreds of scholars in cultural anthropology and related disciplines to refine their arguments and style in their books, journal articles, and book proposals. I have completed editorial training courses in both developmental editing and copyediting, most recently at the University of Chicago. My clients have landed contracts with university presses, including Cambridge University Press, Indiana University Press, Stanford University Press, Bristol University Press, University of Minnesota Press, I.B. Tauris, CEU Press, University of Toronto Press and many more.

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The Narrative Craft Collective

I'm a developmental editor and substantive/line editor. I collaborate with Dr. Marieke Krijnen for academic copyediting and reference list formatting, too.

Dr. Krijnen covers reference list formatting and academic copyediting, and we often work as a team on combined line/copyedits, doing a separate pass each.

She specializes in academic copyediting, including reference list formatting.

Marieke Krijnen: Academic copyeditor

Marieke Krijnen is an academic copyeditor who works on journal articles and book manuscripts. She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and has a PhD. Her academic background is in Arabic, urban studies, geography, and the political economy of the Middle East. Her PhD focused on the gentrification and financialization of the built environment in Beirut, and she obtained an MA from the American University of Beirut with a thesis on how the Lebanese state facilitates real estate investment.