Beverley (Bev) Sykes | Academic copy-editor and proofreader

Background

I started my copy-editIng and proofreading business in 2009 and have extensive experience working on academic books (monographs and edited books), chapters for academic books, journal articles, doctoral/PhD theses and master's dissertations, research reports, conference papers, book proposals and grant applications. I have also worked on general non-fiction texts for clients such as businesses, translators and charities. You can see a list of some of the publications I've worked on here.

I love my work, and I've received some great testimonials from lots of clients, some of which you'll find here, and there are more at the bottom of this directory page. I've mainly built up my business on recommendations and repeat work, and I aim to provide clients with a professional service of a very high standard. I'm committed to engaging with colleagues and to ongoing professional development and have co-run the South Warwickshire/Coventry local group of the CIEP since February 2015.

If you'd like a quote, please get in touch via my contact page. If you're a student, you can have a look at my student service here. Please visit this page of my website if you'd like a brief explanation of the services I offer.

UK, EU and global clients

I do a lot of work for academics and postgraduate students in the UK, but sometimes 50% or more of my work is for academics and postgraduate students who are located elsewhere in Europe or further afield (e.g. Canada, China) and whose second (or third) language is English. I'm a native British English speaker but am used to working on texts in US English and in other Englishes from around the world. I have extensive experience of working with ESL clients. To give you an idea of the breadth of universities my clients have studied or worked at, you can take a look at a selection of them if you scroll right down this page of my website.

In addition to the academic work noted above, the general non-fiction work I have done has included proofreading and copy-editing books; reports for not-for-profit organisations, charities and businesses; marketing materials such as brochures; translations; and TV series pitches for a TV production company.

I have also proofread fiction booklets for children, a storybook for children, a detective/crime novel, two humorous fiction works, some poetry and several romantic fiction novels. I'm keen to build up my fiction experience, so if you have some fiction you've already had edited and it now needs proofreading, do get in touch.

Clients' publishers

I have mainly worked for individual academics, researchers and postgraduate students, but I have also worked for research institutes, government-funded bodies, businesses, publishers, translators, charities, not-for-profit organisations and self-publishing authors (non-fiction and fiction). Books or book chapters that I have proofread have subsequently been published by publishers such as Pickering and Chatto, Ashgate, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Routledge, Rowman & Littlefield, Palgrave MacMillan and the European Commission, and clients’ journal articles have been published in international peer-reviewed journals owned by publishers such as Springer, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Taylor & Francis, SAGE, Elsevier and Wiley. You can see a list of some of the other journals my clients have submitted articles to on this page (you'll need to scroll down quite a lot).

Publisher clients have included Haupt; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; the Oxford Internet Institute; the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford; Unchained Pen; Stoneworks Education; Wellcome Trust; and Zed Books. I have also done some proofreading work for the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading.

Specialist subjects

I specialise in humanities and social science subjects (e.g. English literature, history, philosophy, public health, public health ethics, ethnology, gender studies, social anthropology, social geography, migration studies, political science, sociology, sociology of education, sociology of health and illness, international relations), but I also have an interest in law (general, civil litigation) and specialist knowledge in this area because of my previous career as a solicitor.

Other subject areas

More specific areas I have worked on include abortion law, ADHD, AI and healthcare, architecture, artificial intelligence, business and marketing, caste in India, climate change, cyber bullying, disinformation and fake news, ecommerce, environmental anthropology, gender and work, digital media, digital news, digital support for excluded citizens, disaster risk management, education, food policy, health promotion, health and rehabilitation, higher education, information communication, information systems, intermedial studies, international students, legal theory/philosophy, limitarianism, media transformation, medical software/apps, migration, misinformation, museum studies, music composition, music technology, nursing and physiotherapy, palliative care nursing, psychotherapy, public policy, representations of Muslims in the media, responsible innovation, self-harm, social geography, traditional religions in Kenya, typography, vaccine hesitancy, violence and the production of space, virtual real estate and the metaverse, and women apprentices, so I would probably be able to help you even if your subject area isn’t listed in this paragraph.

Thesis subject areas

The subject areas of PhD theses I have worked on, in addition to the general humanities and social science subjects listed above, have included (not an exhaustive list) business, cancer treatment, creative writing, design history and theory, disaster risk management, film, food system transformation, gendered roles in TV series, housing for older people, human resource management, linguistics, logistics management, management and further education, migration, music technology, nursing, oncology nursing in Indonesia, physiotherapy, psychology, sixteenth-century Church of England, social work, sustainable tourism, Swiss migration and citizenship, theology, war studies and Welsh GCSEs.

Academic qualifications and awards

• BA (Hons) English Literature and History (University of Kent)
• CPE (Common Professional Examination – law conversion course for non-law graduates; Chester College of Law)
• Law Society Final Exam (qualification required prior to training as a solicitor; Chester College of Law)
• Diploma in Personal Injury Litigation (Manchester Metropolitan University)

Copy-editing and proofreading training

Publishing Training Centre: 

• Basic proofreading by distance learning – merit 2009

Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading:

• Attended the hybrid annual conference of the CIEP in 2023 and listened to sessions on topics such as understanding plagiarism, inclusivity editing in children's fiction, avoiding anachronisms in fiction, communication styles and strategies that may be useful for neurodivergent clients, and freelancers in the publishing industry.
• Attended the following workshops/talks at the CIEP conference 2019: Creating effective style sheets; Linguistic bias in editing and proofreading; Be bold: create your own opportunities; Proofreading2020: what do proofreaders really need to know?
• Attended the following workshops/talks at the CIEP conference 2017: Pricing projects; Getting the most out of PerfectIt; Changing skills in publishing.
• Attended the following workshops/talks at the CIEP conference 2016: Introduction to copy-editing and proofreading legal texts; Editing fiction; Editing business text: an in-house editor’s perspective.
• Macro training day (Paul Beverley, Advanced Professional Member, CIEP) 2014
• Introduction to copy-editing (one-day course) 2012

Home study

Brush up your grammar (online course, CIEP) 2014

Basic editing: A practical course by Nicola Harris 2012-2013

Testimonials

Beverley Sykes has been editing philosophical papers, PhD dissertations and edited volumes for me, my PhD students and my colleagues for more than 10 years – and everyone has been univocally very positive about the work Bev does/delivers. She is reliable and uncomplicated in arranging to get the work done, and her editorial work is very careful and always improves the writing. (Prof. Dr. Ingrid Robeyns, Chair Ethics of Institutions, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Utrecht University, the Netherlands)

Bev did an amazing job on my book manuscript on a very tight timeline. She's fast, thorough and knows both UK and American publishers' requirements cold. She spotted things not even my editor or press copy-editor found. I was able to turn in extremely clean copy and get my book into a spring printing. (Dr Deirdre McKay, Keele University, UK)

Beverley is a delight to work with: quick, thorough, and dependable. I have no hesitation in recommending her for proofreading. (Daniele Och, Production Director, Zed Books)

Her command of the language is exceptional and so is her attention to detail yet she is not overly intrusive when correcting grammatical or syntactical errors. I would highly recommend her as a proofreader to anyone who seeks professional standards. (Hatice Yıldız, Junior Research Fellow, Merton College, University of Oxford)

Bev Sykes is a fast and incredibly proficient proofreader. I was working with a tight deadline and Bev was a dream come true – her quick work allowed me to hand in my thesis corrections early and they were accepted soon after. I am very grateful to have worked with Bev and would highly recommend her to anyone needing a proofreader. (Elizabeth Savage, MA, PhD (Dunelm), International Communications Representative)

Beverley provides excellent, thorough proofreading. She is quick and reliable, but also takes time to educate the author on specific points for improvement in terms of style and grammar. Accordingly, she enhances not only the quality of the text, but also the author’s writing skills. (Virgil Rerimassie, Researcher, Rathenau Instituut, The Netherlands)

Bev has an exemplary attention to detail, and her work is of the highest quality. Bev is a true professional and I continue to recommend her to colleagues and students without hesitation. (Dr Ilia Xypolia, Department of Politics & International Relations, University of Aberdeen, UK)

I worked with Beverley on the translation into English of a French-language magazine on Brussels luxury stores. It was rather urgent when I contacted her, and she stepped into it very professionally. She always met with the deadlines and her suggestions for improvement were spot-on. She also motivated the changes she proposed very clearly in her notes. A pleasure to work with. (Kristof Dams, Belgium)

I found Beverley’s details online at a very stressful time, when I was in the last stages of writing up and submitting my PhD thesis. Beverley said she could produce a final draft for me at short notice and was true to her word, returning my manuscript exactly or even a couple of days earlier than the deadline we had agreed. I can honestly say that were it not for her help, I would not have been able to submit on time and probably would have had to make at least a long list of minor corrections after my viva. In the event, I passed my doctorate 'without corrections' which was at least partly due to Beverley's excellent proofreading. (Dr Violeta Vajda)

• Editor
• Proofreader

• Non-fiction
• Education & training
• English as a second language
• English literature
• Environment & nature
• History
• Humanities
• Legal
• Philosophy
• Political science
• Social sciences
• Sociology