I've been asked to proofread a thesis of 40 pages. I would have to correct the spelling and grammar. I'm assuming the English would not be too bad.

Does anyone know what the current going rate is for this kind of work. This is the first time that I'll be doing it?

What would be a reasonable length of time to do it in?

Thank you.

Moved to General

This is a topic on the subject but was in 2005 so not sure the accuracy at the current time.

I paid someone 15k baht to do a150k word book.

In the states it would be something like $20 a page or more, and here it should be even more if you have both the English editing skill and a specialised degree- if you only have the English but are not a specialist in the field your rate should be lower.

Having "proofread" essays for Thai friends at top Thai universities, I would just warn you that proofreading can take a long time.

You will need to be in regular contact with the customer to ascertain what they were trying to say. You will probably notice paragraphs (and maybe even arguments spanning several paragraphs) that are badly formed.

Significant re-writing is inevitable, unless you can be self-disciplined enough to stick purely to your spelling and grammar mandate.

I suggest you do 1 page for FREE to ascertain the customer's requirements and expectations. After that you should be able to calculate how many hours it will take you to do the entire thesis.

I am afraid I do not know the value of each hour of your time but I assume you do.

Having "proofread" essays for Thai friends at top Thai universities, I would just warn you that proofreading can take a long time.

You will need to be in regular contact with the customer to ascertain what they were trying to say. You will probably notice paragraphs (and maybe even arguments spanning several paragraphs) that are badly formed.

Significant re-writing is inevitable, unless you can be self-disciplined enough to stick purely to your spelling and grammar mandate.

I suggest you do 1 page for FREE to ascertain the customer's requirements and expectations. After that you should be able to calculate how many hours it will take you to do the entire thesis.

I am afraid I do not know the value of each hour of your time but I assume you do.

Lots of good points here. Especially the point about actually correcting the first one or two pages to get a feel for much correction might be needed.

Plus through verbal discussion I suggest you get a 'feel' for the arguments / points the writer is trying to build / to emphahsize in the thesis. then read further to see if the written English aligns to what was explained verbally, has enough strength, etc., and check whether the 'arguments' need to be totally / partly rewritten to gain the writers desired emphasis. Quite often the writer has a limited English vocabulary so they use the words they know, but in reality there are better / more aligned English words that would make the points more clearly and more strongly.

As said, charge per page, and set a rate after you have looked at the points above. Perhaps 100Baht per page would be OK if the correction is very minimal but if your 'background checking' shows that numerous major rewrites will be needed then perhaps go much higher, even up to 500BAht per page, especially if there is a need to continuously verbally discuss at length to get a very clear picture, item by item of the points the writer is trying to make, but of course also depending on the ability of the original writer to pay.

These points are quite important - I have been on several committees in Thai universities for the review of the written thesis for Masters and Doctoral candidates, and on several occasions the committee has had doubts about the 'value' of the points in the written thesis (doubt about the 'value' meaning not showing any really new or insightful points or not showing any real 'added value', not showing interesting and well focused analysis, but when the candidate has attended a verbal Q&A session with the committee the verbal points made are quite strong and do have good 'value'. And keep in mind that in most Thai unis the committee is not focused on perfect English (it's not a language test), but they are focused on the 'value' points. )

As an opposite example of fees, we currently use a Thai lady who studied & worked in US and UK for many years, she does pretty good translations* in either direction and she charges 300Baht per A4 page, and my Thai colleagues tell me that 300Baht is quite reasonable today.

(*Her English is pretty good but it's just short of native speaker level and I have to do a final but quite limited clean up of the English she submits)

Edited March 30, 201214 yr by scorecard

@Brit1984 & @scorecard, very good points made. I also am the primary proof reader for manuscripts going out for publishing and thesis. I know within one paragraph how much of a headache I have in store for me. The last thesis I proofed and reading the 1st paragraph, it was terrifying and wonder how the thesis managed to be committee approved. This was after he was awarded the PhD but before it was put on the library shelves they wanted it to be more 'presentable'.

Unfortunately I don't get paid for it as it's part of my job description (de-facto). Due to the back log of proofing and my research time we did farm it out and believe it was around 500 Baht/page. However these are highly technical physics papers and one can get lost very quickly if you don't have an underlying background in the subject.

@Brit1984 & @scorecard, very good points made. I also am the primary proof reader for manuscripts going out for publishing and thesis. I know within one paragraph how much of a headache I have in store for me. The last thesis I proofed and reading the 1st paragraph, it was terrifying and wonder how the thesis managed to be committee approved. This was after he was awarded the PhD but before it was put on the library shelves they wanted it to be more 'presentable'.

Unfortunately I don't get paid for it as it's part of my job description (de-facto). Due to the back log of proofing and my research time we did farm it out and believe it was around 500 Baht/page. However these are highly technical physics papers and one can get lost very quickly if you don't have an underlying background in the subject.

Agree with Tywais, good point about having personal background to the subject area, physics of course a good example. In my case the desirable background is organization behavior.

I need to add some further words to my original point about the 'quality' of the English, in most cases the attitude would be that this is not really an English language test as far as the committee is concerned, however if the thesis is to be submitted for some form of broader publishing or a submission to a professional journal, then there is a need for perfect English.

Edited March 30, 201214 yr by scorecard

I do proofreading for an international bank's Thai marketing department and they pay me 2.5 baht per word.

From my experience:

> I'm assuming the English would not be too bad.

That would be a very silly assumption. Most of the time you are completely unable to decipher what the meaning was intended to be. Verbal discussions will bring you to the realization that they don't know themselves.

> I would have to correct the spelling and grammar.

Most likely means you will need to rewrite it from scratch, including original thinking of decent ideas and tracking down references.

> Does anyone know what the current going rate is for this kind of work. This is the first time that I'll be doing it?

What would be a reasonable length of time to do it in?

Impossible to guesstimate the time, given all the possible variables. I would do it for a flat B5,000 myself, but I'm very fast and currently desperate.

Otherwise I'd offer an hourly rate, reduced for lengthy sessions and total overall time spent.

I would do it for a flat B5,000 myself, but I'm very fast and currently desperate.

OP... I smell an outsourcing opportunity...