Our main editing happens through track changes and comments. Masters and PhD students will mostly gain experience on comments and track change through their supervisors. Post-graduate supervisors are there to help get the content of your work to an academically acceptable level by giving advice. A student and a supervisor can send one document back and forth multiple times. One of the most effective ways to communicate a relevant point or to help correct a student's work is through track change and comments.
However, there are cases where supervisors may prefer other methods of communication, or in the case of a mini-dissertation, communication could have been limited between a supervisor and a student. Therefore, not all students have experience with track change. Since our editing happens through track change and comments, we feel it is necessary to ensure our clients can work as effectively as possible with the technology.
Thesis and dissertations are usually very large documents. There will be times when you have an idea and think that you will remember to put it in later. More often than not, that idea is lost. Even if it is just putting in another source at a certain part of your dissertation or thesis, it is not always convenient or possible to work on a style edit or an idea you've had while working. Therefore, when this occurs, make sure to use track change and comments to remind yourself of the thought. Comments and track changes are also very helpful when you have an idea you are uncertain of, for instance, if a certain construct falls into your topic or is beyond the scope.
We feel it is important that the final say should always be with the author of the manuscript. Comments and track changes give our editors the most freedom of expression and movement within the document without disrupting the writer's intention. This also makes it possible for the writer to accept or reject edits. When all the changes have been accepted or rejected, you can send the document back to us, and we will look at it again free of charge for the last touch-ups. This again will be done through comments and track changes.
All our editors have been where you are sitting now. We have all received editing and critique on our post-graduate work. We understand that a lot of work goes into a post-graduate degree. Your supervisor and editor are both there to ensure that your work is at its very best by the time you submit it to your institution. We understand that the editing process can be stressful. Therefore, we try to make it as easy as possible with the available technology.
Tips
The settings for track change and comments can be found under the review button.
When track change is on, you will see that all the text inserted is a different colour than your original text.
If you want to turn track change on or off, click on the track change button. If you want to turn track change on and off quickly, word has a shortcut key: Ctrl+shift+E.
Make sure that all track changes are accepted or rejected before handing in your document.
Make sure that all your comments are resolved and deleted before sending in your document.
Use the Reviewing plane to see all the track changes in a separate margin. If the review plane is empty, all the changes have been accepted or rejected.
Links
The links lead to tutorials that can help you use track change efficiently. We are not the content creators of the tutorials. Rather the link will take you to Microsoft's website, where they give you a video tutorial on track change and comments.