Maybe you’ve been thinking of working with a developmental editor, but can’t quite decide when would be the best time.

The short answer is: probably earlier than you think.

Most academics lean toward perfectionism. As perfectionists, most would prefer to show the manuscript to someone else only when it’s in fantastic shape. I know I fell into this category when working on my book. When I finally did show it to others, I realized what a silly mistake it had been to wait—I would have saved so much time had I gotten more feedback earlier!

An early look-see at a manuscript plan

Working with a developmental editor before you have much text beyond an outline may seem counterintuitive. But the purpose of asking for a developmental editor’s help is, after all, to make your work more efficient and rewarding. It may really save you time (and maybe even money) if you get eyes on your project in the beginning stages.

If you are at an early stage of the process, chances are you can negotiate a reasonable price for a quick overview or consultation, since there isn’t a mountain of text to get through yet. And the money spent will, ideally, save you hours of time as you and the editor can figure out a productive preliminary structure for your manuscript that you can then use to guide your writing. If you feel like it, you can always have the same or a different developmental editor look at the manuscript at a later stage.

A revision plan for a full draft, before or after peer review

A developmental edit can also be productive later on. Let’s say you have a more or less full draft; maybe you’ve even received peer reviewer comments on it. Now you want to ensure that you have enough eyes on the thing while you still have time to make substantive changes.

Working with a developmental editor at this stage is probably the most common option. The editor reads the full manuscript (and maybe the peer reviews as well) and provides you with an actionable plan for how to move forward.

Whether to aim for a developmental edit before or after getting peer reviews really depends on your needs. Before has the advantage of sending the reviewers the best work you can produce (and maybe land you publication in a more highly ranked journal, for example). On the other hand, after peer review is also a perfectly valid choice, as you might want the expert opinions first. Also, if your reviewer comments are contradictory or sparse, it can be very useful to get a developmental editor’s opinion on the architecture and flow of the work.

That said, a developmental editor is not an additional peer reviewer. We focus on the work as a text, a presentation of academic research, not specifically on the work as a contribution to your field. Often, we are in a different field than you. And even when we’re in the same field, we’re probably not experts in the specific subject you’re writing about.

Don’t hire a developmental editor if…

Now, as a developmental editor, I’m of course rather primed to say that there are multiple points at which you might want to consider a developmental edit. So is there any point at which it is not useful?

Yes. There’s no point in a developmental edit if you’ve decided that you are basically done with the big picture of the manuscript. To benefit from working with a developmental editor, you have to be willing to invest a fair amount of time and work into restructuring, revising, adding, deleting, and rewriting your material. The developmental editor’s job isn’t to rewrite your work, it’s to give you pointers on how you might rewrite it yourself.

Of course, you might still hire someone to do a copy edit (fix grammar mistakes, typos, and references—for books, presses usually hire someone to do this) or a line edit (improve the text on a paragraph-by-paragraph level by rewriting clunky phrasings, refining style, and reordering sentences). Developmental edits, however, require significant input from you, as well as a willingness to make substantive changes to the manuscript.

So, the tl;dr version is: hire early, hire often… But seriously, at most points when your manuscript is still in the process of finding its final shape, a developmental editor can help you figure out what that final shape should look like. Remember, we work with you, not at you—we don’t “fix” your text, but rather we help you as you help the text find its best self.

Image: photo by Freysteinn G. Jonsson on Unsplash