As I mentioned in last week’s post, graduate school is often extremely stressful for a master’s or PhD candidate. It was for me when I was working on my master’s degree in biochemistry. The experiments, while highly interesting, were often grueling. I recall one in which I measured the growth of baker’s yeast over a twelve-hour period, which involved taking measurements every hour or so for twelve hours. Yes, that meant I slept at my desk in the lab between measurements and had an alarm next to me.

But I digress. For many graduate students, the most difficult part of the road is the writing of their thesis or dissertation. For some students, English is a foreign language and they have some difficulty with it. For others, writing in general has always been a struggle.

This is why scientific theses and dissertations are among the things that I edit. If you clicked on the “About” tab on my website, you know that writing my thesis was my favorite part of my master’s project. And I loved editing my own writing when I was working on it. It goes without saying that I love editing the writing of others as well.

My first client whom I did not know personally was a master’s candidate at a well-known research university. Her project was fascinating, but her English needed some help, as it was not her first language. I edited her thesis and got high accolades from both the student and her faculty adviser. The student successfully defended her thesis and earned her master’s degree.

The most important thing to do right after a student contacts you is ask for their adviser’s name and email address, and then get a written document saying that the student has the adviser’s permission to have the thesis or dissertation edited. If a student does not have such permission and you are a party to editing their paper, everyone involved will be in trouble, including you.

Graduate students in the sciences are the next generation of researchers and professors, and it is good to look at them as such. If you are aiding the next generation, it rather makes you feel good.