<p>I’m an American graduate student who is currently studying and living in a Scandinavian country. I’m looking for a way to make a little extra spending money while also helping out some of my fellow students. My university offers mainly STEM programs, so I would be most interested in correcting lab reports, term papers, and master’s theses (PhD theses would probably be too time-consuming) written in English. I have never proofread ‘professionally’ before, but I do have quite a bit of experience writing scientifically for prior coursework and internships. I don’t claim to be an expert on the English language, but I do think I can help ESL students to improve their usage, vocabulary, and ability to concisely convey a point.</p>
<p>Edit: I also forget to mention that the majority of graduate level classes here are taught in English, so I believe there would be some demand for a proofreader who is a native speaker.</p>
<p>Some of my questions and concerns:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Is this something I should seriously consider getting myself into? Ideally, I would like to be able to take on about 5 hours of work per week.</p></li>
<li><p>If yes, how much should I charge? Do I charge by the page? By the hour? By the way, the cost of living is about 20-25% higher where I’m currently living than the average American city.</p></li>
<li><p>Is there anything else I’m not failing to recognize?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I would appreciate feedback from anyone who has experience proofreading. Any general tips would be great too.</p>
<p>Be sure you are legally allowed to work there before you do this. My daughter studied abroad in Finland (sort of Scandinavian, not always included as such :)). I remember that there were some restrictions on her ability to work, although she did not want to anyway.</p>
<p>Good point on the work permit… luckily, I have been able to get a social security number, and my residence permit allows me to work since I’m staying for longer than a year.</p>
<p>Also, be sure that your program and whatever fellowship you have allows you to work. When my daughter was a grad student on a stipend, she was not allowed to work outside of the teaching and research that she did through the school.</p>
<p>At the university that you attend, is it considered ethically acceptable for students to have their work proofread by someone else?</p>
<p>I ask because I used to do freelance work for an online proofreading service, and the company would not proofread students’ academic work because proofreading that sort of document was ethically questionable. </p>
<p>The academic work is supposed to be the student’s work, after all.</p>
<p>If proofreading students’ work does raise ethical issues, you may want to market yourself to (visiting?) professors. I did this sort of work when I was in grad school (U.S. Ivy). I edited a visiting professor’s work to make it more idiomatic. It came naturally for a native speaker and had the added advantage of paying me to read academic work which was (more or less) in my field.</p>
<p>I honestly hadn’t considered any ethical issues of proofreading in an academic setting. Personally, I wouldn’t think it would be a big problem because I only intend to fix grammar-related issues, not retool a student’s argument or research. However, I do understand the cause for concern. Who should I try to talk to within my school to discuss the ethics of this situation?</p>
<p>Not to nitpick, but fixing grammar is not proofreading, it is copy editing. A proofreader is simply supposed to make sure that what is intended to be on the page IS on the page. Correcting spelling may come within that definition, but actually rewriting sentences does not. You might want to present yourself as a copy editor, instead. (But if you do, make sure that you are armed with a good style book. I am very fond of Words Into Type.)</p>