Dr Hester Higton | Academic editor, specialising in history, theology, architectural history and music

I am an editor specialising in academic publications of various kinds. I work both with publishers and directly for authors. I edit a wide range of journals and books for a number of major academic presses. I also work extensively with individual academics who are preparing material for publication. As an academic author myself, I know what publishers are looking for and will help you to tune your writing to the perfect pitch.

I edit a lot of writing by multilingual authors, including those who have less experience writing in English, and enjoy helping them to find the idiomatic turns of phrase that make their writing flow naturally.

For details of the subjects that I cover, see the list below. I mainly work in the humanities, but I do take on some clients writing on other subjects.

I also edit materials for museums, drawing on my experience as a former museum researcher and the curator of a university museum. I am happy to help with the production of new display materials, tweaking policy documents or streamlining websites and other online materials.

You can find out more about me on my website, Academic Editing.

Subjects

I am happy to work in all of these subjects, but my core areas are highlighted in bold.

• Architectural history
• Art history
• Cinema/film
• Classics
• Ecclesiastical law
• History (general, British, church, early modern, history of science, Renaissance, social)
• Museum guides
• Museum studies
• Music (general, choral, classical, early, history, opera, theory, vocal studies)
• Religious studies/theology (general, academic, Christianity, liturgy, theology)

Services

• Copyediting
• Developmental editing
• Editing for multilingual authors
• Rewriting
• Copywriting
• Research

Experience

I have twenty years' experience as a copyeditor and have worked with various major academic presses as well as numerous individual authors. Previously I worked as both an academic and a museum curator.

For the CIEP, I am a tutor for some of the e-learning courses, and I run virtual learning courses on Efficient Editing.

Qualifications and awards

• Licentiateship Award in Editorial Skills, City and Guilds Institute, 2013
• Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP (formerly SfEP) since 2009
• PhD in History of Science

Some of my recent clients

• Bloomsbury
• Brepols
• Brill
• British Museum
• Cambridge University Press
• Edinburgh University Press
• The Royal Society
• Yale University Press
• Numerous academic authors from around the world

Testimonials

Hester's approach to her work is intelligent and sensitive. Authors are always grateful for the improvements she makes to their text. And she sets the highest standards of competency and reliability, so we as publishers are happy too.

Sally Salvesen, Yale University Press

Working with Hester Higton on my manuscript has been a delight. Hester works with admirable speed and thoroughness, and her suggestions have invariably improved my manuscript. She takes a very collegial and sympathetic approach to her work, and I cannot recommend her highly enough.

Jonathan Davies, classicist

Thank you very much, Hester, for your painstaking and diligent work. In my eyes the article has been much improved and clarified. My impression is also that you were very respectful of the text, so that it still feels it's 'my' text, although so much work from you has gone into it. I'd say managing to do this is a precious quality of a polisher/editor. It has been a pleasure to work with you.

Samuel Gessner, historian of astronomy

• Editor

• Art history
• Architecture
• Classics
• History
• Music
• Religion & theology

• Academics
• Book publishers
• Editing agencies
• Educational institutions
• Journal publishers
• Research institutions

• Editorial training