Get a grip on your academic life.
A great part of success in academia comes from the way the author or scholar approaches the writing process. Whether you want to supercharge your reading, research, and study skills, or your academic writing and speaking skills, we can help. Call it "tutoring" if you like, but that makes it sound more like boring instruction. Our coaching is more like athletic coaching, martial-arts coaching, life coaching, dissertation coaching; combining encouragement and exhortation with knowledge and expertise, Wordsmith coaches help you through the tough times, draw out the best from you, and give you skills and understanding that your professor takes for granted (or doesn't have time to impart).
Tackle that writing assignment with a coach to walk you through (project-oriented coaching)
Read without fear, confident that you will comprehend the most difficult texts (analytical-reading coaching)
Improve your writing skills with individual instruction (process-oriented tutoring)
Finish your required reading faster than you thought possible (assessment-reading training)
Hone your logic and case-building abilities, making your writing cogent and compelling
Discover the martial art of scholarship, bringing strength, wisdom, and grace to your studies
Academic coaching begins with a free initial consultation. Once we understand you and the unique challenges you face, we customize a coaching strategy that will fit both your needs and your budget. We match you with a coach who will carry out that strategy together with you, adapting it as your situation changes. And it will. Your approach to academic reading, academic writing, and your fundamental understanding of education will change, deepen, strengthen, mature... if you stick to your training in the martial art of scholarship.
OR
PRESS Writers Group: for academic writers too
Need some accountability to focus your full, fierce attention on that material you need to study, or that paper you need to write? Join us for a writing sprint (or a study sprint, or a brainstorming sprint, whatever you need it to be) through one of our PRESS writers' groups! Let us help you press toward your goals, gain a new awareness of your personal productivity patterns, and discover productivity hacks that work for you. We will work and PRESS together!
*NOTE: as long as "Safer At Home" restrictions keep us from meeting in person, our online PRESS meetings will be 100% FREE. So far, this means for the month of March, April, May, and now June of 2020, there will be no cost for PRESS, and those who join PRESS during this time will receive a 20% discount off the membership fee when we do begin charging it again!
Normally, membership in PRESS costs $60 per month. Join now, during the Covid-19 "Safer At Home" quarantine, and you'll pay only $42 per month for as long as you maintain your membership.
Academic Editing:
Now that you've begun your training in the martial arts of scholarship and finally finished that difficult writing task, we also offer academic editing. We usually incorporate this into our coaching, but if all you need is the editing itself, we can restrain ourselves from seizing those teachable moments!
Here are several different kinds of academic editing we offer:

Developmental Editing
An overall critique and section-by-section feedback concerning its achievement of assignment objectives, academic writing style, structure, logical flow, rhetorical impact, and more. This kind of editing focuses on the coherence and strength of the whole. You’ll see more comments than corrections.
$75
per hour
Copyediting
Focuses on paragraphs, sentences, and word choice. Corrects grammar, syntax, and spelling but also looks for ways to refine your argument, style, and expression. You’ll see lots of corrections but plenty of comments too, especially in the form of requests for specific revisions.

$65
per hour

Proofreading
Focuses on punctuation, spacing, formatting, and combing out every last error. No margin comments unless clarification is needed (or I simply can’t resist trying to help you).
$55
per hour
Formatting
Traditional publishers, Createspace, Kindle, Smashwords, custom letterpress, and custom offset book printers all require different, and very specific, document formats in order to be accepted for publication or printing. We can do this for you too.

$50
per hour
How many hours should I purchase?
If you're buying a block of hours as a gift for a student, four hours seems to be a good-sized chunk. Ten hours will last a whole quarter or semester, for most students. General-purpose prepaid hours are not refundable, but they are transferable to others, and they do not expire.
If you're pre-paying for a project, schedule a free initial consultation. We'll give you a time estimate, and if you pre-pay for your quoted hours at our 10% discounted rate, we'll apply the same 10% discount to any remaining hours we need to bill you for when the editing is complete. If your project takes less time than quoted, we'll refund you any amount overpaid.