Job Checking Thai Student's English Papers For Grammar

[ZenTraveler]

I am an American living in Krung Thep with my Thai girlfriend. She mentioned how one of her college professors would edit graduate student's English papers for proper grammar and spelling and charge 1,000 baht per page.

Granted, the person was a college professor and, one would hope, well educated.

However, I want to inquire about earning money by checking student's papers. Seeing as a high school or college student would (normally) not have a lot of money I would surmise that they could only afford around 20-50 baht per page. I'm not sure if the amount of time to edit a Thai's English paper would be worth such a low wage. (I edited my girlfriend's papers and her friend's and it took a longer amount of time to edit a Thai's English paper compared to an American English paper).

Does anyone have any ideas or comments on making money through this or a similar method?

Peace,

Zen.

[chrisartist]

See the following: http://www.camlang.com and http://www.genedits.com

Edited March 8, 2009 by chrisartist

[KhaoNiaw]

I think the 1000 baht/page rate would be for graduate dissertation papers. They won't be approved until the English is good enough and it will probably involve a certain amount of editing and rewriting as well.

In a lot of cases, proofreading and editing an undergraduate or high school paper to a native English standard would raise suspicions that it is not the student's own work. There are websites where students can get full essays on all kinds of topics but a lot of teachers will be able to spot them a mile away. If it's not necessary to submit a grammatically perfect essay in the first place, then I doubt there's a huge market.

[chrisartist]

I think the 1000 baht/page rate would be for graduate dissertation papers. They won't be approved until the English is good enough and it will probably involve a certain amount of editing and rewriting as well.

In a lot of cases, proofreading and editing an undergraduate or high school paper to a native English standard would raise suspicions that it is not the student's own work. There are websites where students can get full essays on all kinds of topics but a lot of teachers will be able to spot them a mile away. If it's not necessary to submit a grammatically perfect essay in the first place, then I doubt there's a huge market.

There is a huge market worldwide for editing papers to be published in academic journals. Don't edit anything written by an undergraduate because (i) doing so is likely to be against university regulations and (ii) the content of the paper will be so lousy that it will be almost impossible to edit the English because you will have immense difficulty in trying to figure out what the author is trying to say.

It is possible to edit papers/dissertatins that are to be submitted for a higher degree. However, what you can do is sorely limited, assuming that you do not wish to break university regulations. It is usually stipulated that the dissertation be clearly written and be the student's own work. That entails that you can only correct grammatical errors and improve style. However, by far the most problematic aspect of the document will be ambiguity/clarity, and you cannot do anything to fix that. In addition, you cannot do anything to fix logic or the flow of argument (though you are allowed to make the kind of comment that a dissertation supervisor might make, so that the students can fix the problem themselves.)

Some universities in Thailand employ (poorly qualified) native English speakers to edit graduate dissertations. I would suggest that it is not worth trying to get one of these jobs because they only pay about THB50K a month.

It is wise not to bother with students as a freelancer. You will have trouble getting paid and, given that you are not allowed to fix everything without helping the student to cheat, they will be dissatisfied with your work. However, as I said, there is a huge market worldwide for papers that are being prepared for publication in academic journals. In the life sciences alone, there are over 9000 journals, each of which will receive hundreds of submissions per year. There are now a lot of companies that provide editing services to researchers in university and industry. If your work is good enough, they will take you on as a freelance editor. However, given that the papers are to be published in academic journals, the standard of English is very high. Usually, the companies require that their editors hold a PhD in a relevant discipline, with a Masters degree being the minimum qualification.

A page is 300-400 words. One thousand baht a page in Thailand is an outrageous amount of money. About 350-500 Baht would be much more reasonable. If you have a PhD and you edit for people worldwide who want to publish in journals, you can command higher fees.

Editing is not easy. Don't think that you can do it just because you are a native speaker. Your English needs to be excellent. The English of most native speakers falls far short of being excellent. In addition, you need to be very good at solving puzzles and thinking logically. Often, you have to work out what an author is trying to say from the surrounding context.

Edited March 9, 2009 by chrisartist

[toptuan]

I am an American living in Krung Thep with my Thai girlfriend. She mentioned how one of her college professors would edit graduate student's English papers for proper grammar and spelling and charge 1,000 baht per page.

Granted, the person was a college professor and, one would hope, well educated.

However, I want to inquire about earning money by checking student's papers. Seeing as a high school or college student would (normally) not have a lot of money I would surmise that they could only afford around 20-50 baht per page. I'm not sure if the amount of time to edit a Thai's English paper would be worth such a low wage. (I edited my girlfriend's papers and her friend's and it took a longer amount of time to edit a Thai's English paper compared to an American English paper).

Does anyone have any ideas or comments on making money through this or a similar method?

Peace,

Zen.

1000 baht a page for graduate papers is the commonly-charged rate in Isaan universities. I think you're on-target.

[PeaceBlondie]

Toptuan knows Isaan, so I will not argue. But I know folks in Chiang Mai who edit for about 100 baht per page. Doctoral and master's level scientific work for journals, including Khon Kaen and Kaetestart faculty. I have examined the papers submitted for editing, and they are at a high level of scientific expertise, with advanced English. They almost all (including the Ph.D. professors) make common errors such as subject and verb disagreement, wrong tenses, adverbs written as adjectives or vice versa, incomplete passive voice constructions, leaving off the final letter at the end of a word (never having heard it in speech), etc.

I would come out of retirement for a thousand baht a page.

You have to be familiar with editing software, such as tracking with Word. You get stuck in the middle of a 28-word sentence that got lost along the way. You need a sixth sense for what word the writer intended to use. You have to distinguish affect from effect. It ain't something you can do with just a BA, TEFL cert, and two years of teaching EFL.

But undergraduate and matayom, for typical Thai students - few could afford 50 baht a page.

[chrisartist]

1000 baht a page for graduate papers is the commonly-charged rate in Isaan universities. I think you're on-target.

It might be the commonly-charged rate (though the claim stretches the bounds of my credibility). However, regardless of the truth or otherwise of the claim, it is still an outrageous amount of money. Assume that a page is 400 words. Then the rate is 250 baht per 100 words. That's GBP5 per 100 words. That is significantly more than professional editing companies charge to Europeans and North Americans, and the companies have to pay their editors out of their fees; editors who are PhD-educated. In short, 1000 baht per page in Thailand is just a rip off. I am inclined to believe that this rate is not for editing. I suspect that it is for pretty much writing the students' papers for them, which is cheating. It seems to me that only helping the students to cheat could justify such a rate in Thailand.

Edited March 9, 2009 by chrisartist

[chrisartist]

Here's some useful reference material for editors:

Oxford Style Manual

Shorter Oxford English Dictionary

New Oxford Thesaurus

The New Oxford American Dictionary

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Technical and Scientific Terms

Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary

Dictionary of Microbiology and Molecular Biology

The ACS (American Chemical Society) Style Guide

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association

American Medical Association Manual of Style

Medical Writing: a Prescription for Clarity, by Goodman and Edwards

The ICMJE uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals (www.icmje.org)

Successful Scientific Writing, by Matthews, Bowen and Matthews

Essentials of Writing Biomedical Research Papers, by Zeiger

Council of Science Editors style guide

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language

Edited March 9, 2009 by chrisartist

[phaethon]

... one of her college professors would edit graduate student's English papers for proper grammar and spelling and charge 1,000 baht per page.

You just don't understand... If a student were to accidentally include any proper grammar or spelling in a report they would be failed automatically, the assumption being that they had downloaded the work from the Internet. The professor is simply trying to protect his students.

[Artisi]

I have edited a number of Thai student Ms and PhD papers as well as other presentations, I usually quote a price based on a full review of what they has presented. If it makes sense without major errors or the need for major re-writes I will negotiate a price with the student, for a PhD thesis somewhere between B10,000 and B20,000 is a resonable fee. However, if the work in a jumble of errors, cut and paste, copied work and is not clear and understandable (not unusual) I will politely decline and suggest as it is their paper they should write it, not me and to spend time in self editing as a first step to getting it somewhere near readable, this also save a heap of money, they can ask me again when they have reviewed it a few times and straightened it out.

[PeaceBlondie]

I had no idea there were that many filthy rich Thais who had that kind of money to spend on editing. The rumour is that they just buy the degree. The struggling MS students can barely afford 400 baht an hour.

[ZenTraveler]

Thank you everyone for responding. This appears to be an area of work that I best to stay out of because of the time involved in figuring out what the author is trying to say in their paper and my limited education with advanced English study.

Peace,

Zen.

[Ijustwannateach]

I think there are 2 different things being talked about here- first of all, there is a full, formal review of someone's thesis by an expert in the field- someone who would theoretically be qualified to approve the paper for actual degree work. In that case, 1000B/page is fully justified (think about asking someone for a Ph.D in history, for example, to look over your thesis and check it for mistakes or weaknesses before a defense). On the other hand, there are likely to be plenty of people who don't need such expert attention to the content of their work, but aren't very good at writing in English. In that case, much lower rates are likely to apply.

[Artisi]

Thank you everyone for responding. This appears to be an area of work that I best to stay out of because of the time involved in figuring out what the author is trying to say in their paper and my limited education with advanced English study.

Peace,

Zen.

Sounds resonable.

[chrisartist]

I think there are 2 different things being talked about here- first of all, there is a full, formal review of someone's thesis by an expert in the field- someone who would theoretically be qualified to approve the paper for actual degree work. In that case, 1000B/page is fully justified (think about asking someone for a Ph.D in history, for example, to look over your thesis and check it for mistakes or weaknesses before a defense). On the other hand, there are likely to be plenty of people who don't need such expert attention to the content of their work, but aren't very good at writing in English. In that case, much lower rates are likely to apply.

I charge GBP90 per hour for assessing logic and flow of argument. I regard it as a different service entirely from editing the English. I charge GBP3.43 per 100 words for editing the English in all disciplines outside the life sciences and GBP3.76 per 100 words for editing in the life sciences. I don't edit papers in the life sciences myself (except ecology). I farm them out to freelance editors. However, given that I have a PhD in Philosophy and specialised in philosophy of science, I am fully qualified to assess the logic and flow of argument of papers in any discipline, provided that the English has been tidied up first. If you need someone in your field to review your work, who better than your supervisor? There is no need to hire anyone. If you are already a publishing academic, you can send the work to your peers and present it at conferences and seminars prior to submitting it for publication.

I think that there are three services that can legitimately be provided by an editing company:

----Editing English

----Assessment of logic and flow of argument

----Editorial advice (ensuring that the paper conforms to the required format for your field; by this, I don't mean formatting according to style guides, I mean presenting the material in accordance with such guidelines as those presented for papers in the biomedical sciences that are provided by www.icjme.org .)

Hiring someone who is an expert in the field of your dissertation to provide a full, formal review of it would be cheating and the consequences for cheating at that level are severe. If your cheating were to be discovered, you would not be awarded the degree. However, it is okay to discuss your work with others or have them read your work and make the kind of commnet that a supervisor is allowed to make. Supervisors make suggestions. They cannot fix things for you.