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Dissertation Editing

Dissertation Chapter Edit (Tracked Changes)

Three passages from a master's dissertation literature review, shown with tracked changes and the margin comments the student would receive.

Sample master's dissertation excerptAcademic EditingDissertationTracked Changes

The brief

A master's student in organisational psychology had a complete literature review chapter written in their second language. The ideas and sources were strong; the problems were long sentences, repetition, informal phrasing and paragraphs that didn't signal how they connected.

The approach

Editing only, never rewriting the argument. I tightened sentences, fixed grammar and academic register, and added signposting between paragraphs, but every claim, source and conclusion is the student's own. Where a change could alter meaning, I left a comment asking rather than guessing.

Delivered

  • Full chapter edit with tracked changes
  • Clean copy with all changes accepted
  • Margin comments on meaning and structure
  • Short summary of recurring issues to watch in later chapters

The work

Read the full sample

3 min read

The passages below were written for this sample to reflect the kind of text students typically send; they are not from a real student's dissertation. The sources cited are real, published works.

Red strikethrough is deleted text; green is added text. Editor comments follow each passage.

Passage 1: Opening of the section

In the recent years, the topic of Research on remote work has became a very popular topic in the research, especially has expanded rapidly, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic, because of the reason that many forced many organisations were forced to let to move their employees work from their home to home working in a very short time almost overnight. This section will be looking at This section reviews the literature on how remote work is affecting the wellbeing of employees the effects of remote work on employee wellbeing, and it focusing will focus on three themes: autonomy, social isolation, and work–life boundaries.

Comments

  1. "Became" → "become" after "has" (present perfect). A recurring pattern in this chapter; I've corrected it throughout.
  2. "Topic… topic" and "because of the reason that" are redundant. Academic writing rewards the shortest accurate phrasing.
  3. "Will be looking at" → "reviews". Present simple is conventional for describing what your own text does.
  4. Serial comma added for consistency with the rest of the chapter.

Passage 2: Summarising a source

Allen, Golden and Shockley (2015) they did a big review of In a comprehensive review of telecommuting research and they found that, Allen, Golden and Shockley (2015) found that there is many benefits for the employees like employees often benefit from greater autonomy and less reduced commuting stress. But however However, they also said also noted that the effects was not same for everyone and it depends on these effects varied considerably depending on how much the person works remotely the extent of remote work and what kind of job they have the nature of the job.

Comments

  1. "They" after the author names duplicated the subject. Restructured so the sentence starts with the context of the review.
  2. "But however" is a double conjunction; "However," alone is correct.
  3. "Said" → "noted". Reporting verbs such as noted, argued, found and suggested signal how strongly the authors claim something. Please check "noted" matches your reading of the source; "argued" would imply a stronger position.

Passage 3: Linking two themes

Another thing is social isolation. While autonomy is generally associated with positive outcomes, social isolation represents a consistent risk. A lot of studies shows Several studies report that remote workers feel more lonely experience greater loneliness and less connected with weaker connection to their colleagues, which is bad because it can make, which can reduce them less committed to commitment to the organisation [reference needed].

Comments

  1. The new opening sentence connects this theme to the previous one. Without it, the section reads as a list rather than an argument.
  2. "A lot of studies" is informal. "Several studies" is accurate only if you cite more than one. Please add the references here; the original sentence had none.
  3. "Which is bad" is an evaluative judgement the evidence should make for you. Replaced with the specific consequence you describe.

Summary note sent with the edit

Your argument and use of sources are strong. The recurring issues were: present perfect verb forms, doubled words or conjunctions, informal quantifiers ("a lot of", "big"), and missing links between paragraphs. Watch for these in chapters 3 and 4. I've flagged two places where a citation seems to be missing and one where I wasn't sure which source you meant. Please check those before submission.

Why it works

The edited passages say exactly what the student meant, in fewer words and a consistent academic voice. Comments explain the reason for each type of change, so the student learns the pattern instead of just accepting edits, and questions are flagged for the student to decide rather than silently changed.

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