Editor and Proofreader for Philosophy of Education Paper (MacIntyre familiarity required)

We are supporting a newly formed accrediting body preparing a series of foundational papers on the philosophy of education that will underpin standards and review methodology. We need an editor for the first of these. The paper runs roughly 8000 words. It argues that higher education institutions can be meaningfully evaluated only if teaching and inquiry are understood as practices in the sense MacIntyre gives that term in After Virtue, with internal goods, standards of excellence that practitioners do not set individually, and a relationship to institutions that is both necessary and corrupting. The argument then draws out what follows for how an accreditor should design its standards. What we need is a close reader who can do three things: Tighten the prose without flattening the author’s voice. Catch the places where the argument invokes MacIntyre’s vocabulary without having earned it, or where a term does more work in one section than it did in an earlier one. Proofread to a publication standard, including citations in Chicago notes and bibliography style. This is not a rewrite. The author has a settled position and a distinct voice, and both should survive the edit. Where you think the reasoning fails, say so in a memo rather than fixing it on the page. Deliverables are a tracked changes file in Word and a memo of no more than two pages covering substantive concerns, gaps in the argument, and anything a hostile reader in the accreditation world would seize on. Turnaround is 21 days from receipt. Rate is $1500 fixed for the first paper. We expect to commission 3-5 more papers in this series over the next 12 months and would prefer to keep the same editor throughout. We will split the payment into milestones, with half on delivery of tracked changes and memo and half after the cleanup pass, which protects both sides. We will pay two or three finalists $200 each for a sample edit of 1,500 words drawn from the middle of the paper, not the introduction. The introduction is where authors are most careful. The middle is where you we find out whether an editor can tell the difference between prose that is merely awkward and prose that is concealing a gap in the argument. To apply, answer these three questions in your proposal. Short answers are fine, and we would rather read three honest paragraphs than a portfolio. 1. Where does MacIntyre’s distinction between practices and institutions create a problem for anyone trying to evaluate a university, and how would you expect a careful author to handle it? 2. Describe an edit you made on a philosophical or scholarly text where you pushed back on the author’s argument rather than the prose. What was the disagreement and how did it resolve? 3. What is your experience with Chicago style and with academic or policy writing intended for a non-specialist professional audience? Proposals that do not answer the questions will not be reviewed.