Make Your Manuscript Work: A Guide to Developmental Editing for Scholarly Writers

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Laura Portwood-Stacer

Make Your Manuscript Work

A Guide to Developmental Editing for Scholarly Writers

Laura Portwood-Stacer

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English

Princeton University Press
01 December 2025

Writing & editing guides; Reference works; Publishing industry

Series: Skills for Scholars

Developmental editing holds the power to make a manuscript connect with publishers and readers, yet few scholarly writers have the training to do it well. Make Your Manuscript Work offers a practical method for assessing and refining the features of their texts that matter most - argument, evidence, structure, and style. This guide shows scholarly writers how to identify what's been holding their writing back and fix it so they can accomplish their publication goals.

Laura Portwood-Stacer, a writer, editor, and consultant for academic authors, explains how manuscripts move through the publication process and identifies the key stages for authors to improve their texts. She helps writers better understand who they are writing for and why, enabling them to determine what their drafts need most to move forward. Drawing on a decade of experience as a developmental editor of scholarly manuscripts, Portwood-Stacer details the most common opportunities for development she's encountered and shares practical tips for implementing needed edits. The book also includes a checklist of assessment questions, examples from real scholarly manuscripts, tips on seeking additional help, and advice on offering developmental editing assistance to other writers.

Written with candor, empathy, and a deep awareness of the challenges faced by academic writers who want to publish, Make Your Manuscript Work is an indispensable how-to guide for scholars at all career stages.

'I wish this book had existed years ago. It's the book I needed to succeed more easily as a scholarly author; and it's the book you need too. Portwood-Stacer provides a clearly drawn series of steps you can take to improve your own book (or article) manuscript - to hone its arguments, its structure, and its style. If you want your manuscript to be the best it can possibly be, Make Your Manuscript Work is the book for you.' - Stephen B. Heard, author of The Scientist's Guide to Writing

By: Laura Portwood-Stacer
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 140mm,
ISBN: 9780691257464
ISBN 10: 0691257469
Series: Skills for Scholars
Pages: 264
Publication Date: 01 December 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , General/trade , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Laura Portwood-Stacer, PhD, is a developmental editor and founder of Manuscript Works, a consultancy serving academic authors around the world. She is the author of The Book Proposal Book: A Guide for Scholarly Authors (Princeton) and Lifestyle Politics and Radical Activism and previously taught media and cultural studies at New York University and the University of Southern California.