This summer has been very enjoyable, but hasn’t left me with much opportunity to work. In just a week and a half, I hope to have a little more time on my hands. For the first time in ten years, I will have no children at home with me for half of the day. At least in theory, I will be using this time to write more, edit more, proofread more, and coach more writers.

One of the areas I want to expand into the most is writing coaching, especially for graduate students. In the past, I’ve helped doctoral candidates complete their dissertations and Master’s students complete the requirements of their degrees. Some graduate students need help structuring their work so that their arguments are comprehensible. Without assistance, their writing tends to ramble and wander…it contains lots of ideas, but who can follow them if they are all jumbled together?

Do you dump all your research together in no particular order?

Others need help pacing themselves so they can meet deadlines. Some students don’t even know where to start–I help them organize their research and prewrite so that they have a strong scaffold on which to build their writing. I’ve also seen that non-native speakers of English struggle with the editing and proofreading of their own work. They might have mastered the concepts and skills required by their graduate program, but find it difficult to express themselves in a final product that competes with those of native speakers.

There are some people who outright (ghost)write academic papers for graduate (even undergraduate!) students. Such writers make money that way, but who really benefits? Those who I help acquire real writing skills which they will employ in the years to come. They also gain greater mastery of the concepts they are expressing in their dissertation or thesis, because they have to explain them to their audience (including a layman–that would be me). Students who are properly coached can feel pleasure in their accomplishment, because it is real, as opposed to someone whose degree is based on a deception about who actually completed the graduation requirements.

While I love working with graduate students–especially because I learn so much from them about a wide range of topics–I also love coaching people through their first picture book submissions and the like.

Now that I will truly be working part-time every weekday, I will be advertising more widely for clients. If you or anyone you know hopes to graduate with a PhD or Master’s Degree in the spring, now is the time to get a handle on your graduation requirements. Writing coaching might just be the boost you need to help you finish with less mess and less stress. Coaching can be done in person for those in L.A., or over Skype for those elsewhere.  For more information, follow this link: proofreading, editing, and writing coach services.