“We have worked with Kirsty several times over the last two years, using both her copyediting and proofreading services. The work is always delivered on schedule and to an excellent standard. Kirsty is professional in her approach and takes time to understand the purpose and intended audience of documents. She tailors her approach accordingly and provides sensitive, well thought out comments on the content and clarity of the text. On occasions we have needed documents copyedited at very short notice. Kirsty is always very responsive and goes above and beyond to turnaround documents in a short time frame. We would highly recommend Kirsty’s services to anyone looking for an efficient and professional editing service.”

— Ruth McKenna, Waverley Care (UK)

“Kirsty Kay edited a paper of mine and did a fantastic job. She helped to turn my bad translation from German to English into a decent piece of writing that sounds like actual English. Furthermore, she assisted to transform a lengthy and meandering draft on a complicated topic in Holocaust history into a cohesive and coherent article. She did not just scratch the surface and correct my spelling and idiomatic mistakes but really dived into the topic, asking me pointed question that helped to clarify my thoughts. This proved tremendously helpful in shaping my arguments. Her remarks even helped me later on fleshing out my doctoral thesis. Kirsty was super-thorough on all levels, easy to communicate with and extremely reliable. Writing scientific papers can be a very exhausting process. More than once, her friendly e-mails really helped me to push on.”

—Phillip Dinkelaker, Center for Research on Antisemitism, Technical University Berlin (Germany)

“In recent decades, English has increasingly become the lingua franca in international humanities and social sciences. This is a great process of international integration, but there is the serious danger of on the one hand underprivileging non-native speakers of English in the marketplace of ideas, or on the other hand barbarizing the English language and reducing the role of precise linguistic expression, which would be fatal for the humanities as we know them.  This is why the field of academic proofreading becomes a highly important profession requiring a lot of skill. Proofreaders basically take you from your particular existence and bring you into your universal existence. Kirsty Kay and  Zachary Reyna are unique virtuosos of proofreading, with interdisciplinary academic competences, mastery of English, and many years of experience in the profession. I highly recommend them!”

— Artemy Magun, Director of the Center for Practical Philosophy at the European University at St Petersburg (Russia); Editor of Stasis: journal of social and political philosophy

“I worked with Kirsty on several papers which were eventually published in the principal journal in the subfield of sociology I am working in (quantitative sociology of culture). While getting them there was in no way easy, none of the many criticisms coming from the reviewers during many iterations of “revise and resubmit” was related to the quality of English writing. Taking into account that my knowledge of English did not progress much since I graduated from a Soviet secondary school, making what I wrote understandable for international reviewers was Kirsty’s remarkable achievement. Working with Kirsty was both easy and enlightening. It was easy as she excellently grasped intended meanings and edited the text so that these meanings were communicated accurately. It was enlightening as, following her detailed remarks and suggestions, I was (I hope) able to make some progress in academic English myself. Multiple iterations of “revise and resubmit” inevitably created some ambiguity on how to count the volume of editor’s work on the revised versions of the same paper, but Kirsty was always very generous in estimating how much we owe her for editing the revision (which, as scholars from a middle-income country, my co-authors and I very much appreciate). I would without any doubt recommend her help to any non-English speaker who embarks on preparing papers for a top-tier journal in social sciences.”

— Mikhail Sokolov, European University at St Petersburg (Russia)

“Kirsty co-edited our collective volume on collaboration and resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe. Her work went far beyond simple language-corrections; with patience and enthusiasm she helped our authors to clarify their arguments and improve their articles altogether. Her experience in working with non-native speakers was especially helpful for this volume, since the authors came from various countries and disciplines. Her background in East European Studies and the knowledge she acquired in previously editing publications about the Holocaust made her especially perceptive for meanings and pitfalls when it comes to writing about this period of history. Her responsible and reliable communication with the authors and us as editors was of enormous help for the project.”

— Paula Oppermann, University of Glasgow (UK)

“Kirsty has edited three articles of mine which I then submitted to Q1 peer-reviewed academic journals. The first article she edited was my first text ever written in English. She did the almost impossible job of making it sound not just understandable but almost native. I still think that it is partly thanks to her copyediting that this article was published in the first journal I submitted it to. The next article she edited just recently returned from the external review in a different Q1 journal. One of the reviewers specifically mentioned that the paper is well-written. The third article is still under review, but I’m sure that Kirsty’s copyediting will bring me luck again.”

— Svetlana Yerpyleva, Public Sociology Laboratory, Center for Independent Social Research, St Petersburg (Russia)