Scientific Proofreading for STEM PhD Theses

Outmanoeuvring ‘Minor Corrections’

We understand the priorities of doctoral candidates in STEM and STEM-adjacent subjects as they navigate the rite of passage from PhD submission through to examination and, thereafter, the job market. With many students moving on to postdoctoral positions and industrial placements upon receipt of their PhD, we understand that you do not want the examination process to be drawn out by a lengthy (and demoralising) round of revisions. Therefore, in our professional editorial experience, PhD students benefit from a very particular form of proofreading.

We have devised a scientific proofreading service dedicated to removing the chances of receiving minor corrections from your exam, while also preserving the academic integrity of your scholarship. Through our careful interventions, we can elevate the scholarly register of your thesis, helping to engage your examiner(s) as effectively as possible with your ideas, whether you are working in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, or a STEM-adjacent subject.

In offering this service, we check and correct for typographical mistakes, grammatical and punctuation errors, structural infelicities, and sentences that do not read well (for whatever reason). We will also check all graphics, boxes, figures, and tables, and (where required) retrieve and format absent or inadequate references. As part of PhD proofreading, we render your work consistent with regard to referencing style and in accordance with your university’s specific formatting guidelines. To this end, we are conversant with the dominant citation styles for all STEM subjects (including ACS, AIP, AMA, APA, ASA, Chicago, CSE, Harvard, ICMJE, and IEEE). Furthermore, we readily familiarise ourselves with the peculiarities required by different university faculties for the sake of PhD and DPhil submission. Just let us know your referencing style and spelling conventions (e.g., American or British English) and we can begin transforming your manuscript into clear and compelling prose. We aim to reduce the risk of receiving minor corrections based not only on the sort of mistakes that a regular proofreading service (or your supervisor!) might catch, but also missing or incomplete citations and/or formatting issues. As part of this service, we carefully heed university regulations so that the thesis meets the relevant form to facilitate submitting and printing the thesis.

If you have received major corrections from your doctoral examination, we can also assist. Please contact science@lexacademic.com to enquire.