Smith Editorial Services:
Editing & Indexing Services

Smith Editorial Services began as a sideline source of extra income. Experienced librarians seem to possess in abundance the skills required for intelligent indexing. Now, after 30 years, I have retired from the library biz and we have cranked up our part-time operations to a full-time level. The business is expanding rapidly and we are actively soliciting additional assignments and commissions.

Since 1982, I have been producing mostly back-of-the-book indexes, mostly for academic publishers and university presses. I have also picked up infrequent assignments as a copyeditor, but many publishers seem to prefer to keep this function "in house." We're trying hard to break through that reluctance. In fact, we would especially like to find projects that include both copyediting a book manuscript and then indexing the final volume –– it's so much more efficient!

So, what do we do?

Indexing

• We write back-of-the-book indexes for commercial publishers and university presses. Academic monographs are our specialty. We have particular expertise in:

History  Biography  Political science  Genealogy  Economics

Literature  Philosophy  Psychology  Urban studies  Education

Sociology  Criminology  Military & Naval science  Theology  Women's studies

• We write cumulative indexes for multi-year runs of academic journals.
• We are experienced in working with authors as well as managing editors and project editors.
• Our operations are fully computerized (naturally). We can provide a finished index as files on disk, in nearly any word processing format, as well as in multiple paper copies (which can be sent to separate addresses by FedEx overnight delivery). We can also make delivery by email attachment.
• We can code a completed index for the printer.

Editing

• Stylistic editing deals with:
• clarification and coherence
• logical development and flow
• consistency in tone and presentation
• Copyediting deals with:
• accuracy in spelling, grammar, and punctuation
• improvement in word choice
• adherence to the chosen (or required) style guide

• Are you a graduate student struggling to coerce your thesis or dissertation into shape for submission to your committee? We will evaluate your manuscript for a logical flow of evidence and conclusions, and make useful suggestions. Then we will thoroughly copyedit the final draft for accuracy and consistency in structure, grammar, and form.
• Is English not your native language? We can pre-edit your manuscipt, proposal, academic presentation, or business report to give you confidence at submission time.
• We will edit and index software manuals –– especially those intended for non-technical users.
• We can scan paper materials and process them with OCR software to create text files for FTP. We can also increase their value with HTML coding for presentation on the World Wide Web.
• We can prepare attractive, camera-ready copy for printing, microfilming, or CD-ROM.
• We are experienced in online indexing of databases.
• Sorry –– we must decline proofreading assignments as we usually cannot offer competitive bids on them. However, we are always delighted to undertake all-in-one projects –- copyediting, proofreading, and indexing of the same manuscript. In fact, we think that's the most cost-efficient method.

©1997-2002 Michael K. Smith
All rights reserved
Last revised 3/01/2002