ESL editing – the way forward?
Oh God. Copy-editing a PhD thesis on corporate governance legislation, written by a Chinese student with commendable command of spoken English (I know, because I’ve spoken to him on the phone) but execrable sentence construction on the page. He knows exactly what he means. I, on the other hand, have only the barest grasp of corporate economics, and have to read each poorly constructed sentence three times before I can even begin to grasp his meaning, much less reconstruct his words into proper English.
The thing is with these English-as-a-second-language manuscripts, they pay well (international students are usually loaded) and there’s a steady supply of work, but the editing is a nightmare. Bad enough working on someone’s precious PhD thesis when you know the area and it’s written in the author’s native tongue. Imagine doing one in a completely impenetrable area, about which you know nothing and care even less, and which is written in English which is idiosyncratic to the point of incomprehensibility…
Been at it all afternoon while T is out entertaining the kids (nice role reversal; let’s see how he likes it. Welcome to my world, sucker). Half way through chapter 1; only six and half more to go. Head spinning. Must … lie … down …
LOL! I’ve done this before! I know exactly what you mean when you talk about having to read sentences over and over. Thankfully, usually it’s journal articles I do on developing countries or whatever, though I did work on one ESL thesis too.
In the end, it’s such a headache for me that I don’t think the money is worth it. But when you actually need it…well, that’s why I’m still doing it all, I guess!
PS. What I find more annoying is the stuff that you have to read over and over by a person whose first language is English! Or by the ones who think academic writing must be full of words over 25 letters long or liberally spattered with Latin and French words. Ugh.
Have just been ‘mentoring’ trainees at work who have to write features to qualify. Not entirely sure that English is their first language, either…
Hey Hawthorn,
Just wondering how you are. I hope all is well on your side of the pond. I’m off to work now, having just arrived home from Toronto by train (can’t believe my boss wouldn’t give me the day off!), but wanted to say hi!