Consulting & Editing

Guidelines for WTS Recommended Copy Editors

1. The editor should have professional editing or proofreading experience and knowledge of Westminster. The editor must pass the Westminster editing test.

2. Editors should adhere to the editing parameters listed on the table below. These parameters are designed to encourage the student to be responsible for the final product, to continue to learn skills needed in academic pursuits, and, in the case of the thesis, to maintain proper boundaries for the role of the thesis advisor, the student, and the copy editor. Editing should focus on the grammatical and formatting level and avoid comments on the content of the thesis, the development or logic of the paragraphs, or the order of presentation of ideas.

3. Editors may provide the student with guiding comments on some types of repeated errors in punctuation and mechanics rather than correct every instance. For example, if a student consistently forgets the period at the end of a citation, mark a handful of instances and request that the student correct this type of mistake throughout his paper. All random errors and all grammatical errors should be corrected.

4. Editors must be willing to make the appropriate changes in their approach to editing in response to feedback from the WTS faculty, by way of the CTW director, on quality of their work.

5. Editors must prepare an initial estimate for a student. The student must accept that estimate before the work begins. The estimate should be based on an actual sample from the paper to be edited, and priced so that the student pays the equivalent of approximately $30–40 per hour for the work.

6. Editors must be thoroughly familiar with the Format Guidelines for WTS Theses, Dissertations, and Projects and with Turabian/Chicago and SBL citation systems.

7. Use of track changes and the comment function in Word (or its equivalent in another word processing program) is encouraged. Please avoid altering the student’s text in such a way that your suggested changes cannot be distinguished from the original text.

‍

* Westminster has no official policy on the use of gender neutral language, and students are encouraged to make their own choice in the matter. The Westminster Theological Journal guidelines are informative here: “The problem of ‘gender-specific language’ is considered a stylistic question that authors must resolve on their own. Contributors are encouraged, however, to avoid offending the sensibilities of readers whenever possible. Thoughtless repetition of ‘man’ in its generic sense, for example, is not advisable, but neither is the excessive use of the contrived ‘he or she’ or the use of generic ‘she.’” The current document, for example, uses generic ‘he’ with no offence or exclusion intended for its female readers.