Testimonials

“It is not an easy task, given our circumstances, to find a reliable professional who performs precise proofreading, not only correcting errors but also providing enlightening suggestions to enhance the clarity and precision of the original text. Allison is not only such an experienced professional but also a reliable consultant who can even answer such peculiar questions that probably only non-native English speaker linguists may ask through the course of writing about phenomena in under-described languages, based on her expertise in contemporary linguistics. With her careful support, writing a research paper, or even a lengthy monograph, becomes an enjoyable task, and her thoughtful suggestions give me a lot more confidence in my work. I already look forward to working with her on future projects.”

~ Daisuke Shinagawa, Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS).
Shinagawa, Daisuke (forthc. in 2024) “A micro-parametric approach to focus marking ni in Kilimanjaro Bantu languages: With special reference to Rombo-Mkuu and Uru
Shinagawa, Daisuke (forthc.) Cobberbelt Bemba: A Sketch Grammar.

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“I’ve worked regularly with professional copyeditors for over a decade and working with Allison was easily the best experience I’ve had in that time. Her work is careful and precise, she’s clear in her timelines and meets the offered deadlines, and she responds to text in a language that writers find useful and clarifying. There’s not much more one could ask for. I hope to work with her again on future projects.”

~ Andrew Griffin, the Early Modern Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara
Book on “Play the Knave,” the EMC Imprint from UCSB.

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“Whenever I write a paper in English, Allison is always the first person I ask to proofread and check my non-native English prose, and so do my colleagues at my institute. We all trust her expertise in editing manuscripts, which is coupled with her deep understanding of linguistics. There is really no one quite like her.

While there are many commercial companies that do the work of checking and correcting English, especially that of non-native speakers, they usually just ‘correct’ the writing. Allison often gives me much more than corrections. She explains why the original prose needs changes, and what are the possible alternatives. In this way, I can be sure that her corrections and suggestions really reflect what I am trying to convey. In working with her, there is always a two-way dialogue to refine and polish the prose. Her help has been invaluable for me over the years and papers. Her answers to my questions about English grammar and usage are always illuminating, and I often save her messages in a separate folder. I have learned a lot through our correspondence.

Lately, I have been publishing texts narrated in Sliammon, a Coast Salish language, in the original language and the English translation. Translating natural discourse can be quite difficult, since the utterances may not be neat, complete sentences. We want to reflect the original language as much as possible but also make the English translation readable. This is a balancing act that I find very hard. Allison’s help has been invaluable with these papers, because she understands the issue and the difficulties I face.

Allison is always very friendly but courteous, and although I have never met her in person, I feel like she is my good friend. She was recommended to me first by my colleague, Toshihide Nakayama, and we both recommended her to our colleagues. She now has a sizable fan base at our university in Tokyo.”

~ Honoré Watanabe, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Editing on several texts, including:

Watanabe, Honoré. (2022) “A Sliammon Text: ‘Blackfish,’ as Told by Mary George.” Asian and African Languages and Linguistics 16. Fuchu: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. pp. 309–328. DOI
Watanabe, Honoré. (2021) “A Sliammon Text: ‘First Pregnancy,’ as Told by Mary George.” Asian and African Languages and Linguistics 15. Fuchu: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. pp. 93–103. DOI

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“To work with Allison was a great pleasure and a privilege. She is very efficient, well organized, and does excellent editing work. All our authors – native speakers and non-native speakers – appreciated her meticulous and circumspect editing. Our volume has benefitted a lot from it, not only with regard to legibility, but also with regard to clarity and precision. We can wholeheartedly recommend her as an editor.”

~ Nadine Amsler, Andreea Badea, Bernard Heyberger, and Christian Windler (Eds.). (2020) Catholic Missionaries in Early Modern Asia: Patterns of Localization. London: Routledge.

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“Allison proved an invaluable help in the editing of our volume. Because of the many multimodal transcriptions, which were handled differently by the contributors, the editing was a demanding task. Her work was immaculate throughout! Allison carefully applied the style sheet and spotted inconsistencies on all levels (use of technical terms, abbreviations, italics, etc.). Not only did she correct all errors and typos, but her comments regarding style were impressive. Allison has a thorough command of the academic written register. Moreover, she carefully followed argumentations and discovered rhetorical inconsistencies. Her knowledge in the field allowed insightful comments on the texts. In sum, her copyediting made the volume more coherent and accessible.

The feedback by our authors (native and non-native speakers, some professors of English) was unanimously positive. Many told us that they had never had such fine copyediting.

Allison was always transparent about her schedule and informed us well in advance about her availability. She continuously tried to adjust to our late submissions and was always available for queries. Working with Allison was a pleasure throughout! We will definitely rely on her services for future projects and can only recommend her.”

~ Cornelia Gerhardt, Saarland University, Germany
Elisabeth Reber, University of Würzburg
Reber, Elisabeth & Cornelia Gerhardt (Eds.). (2019) Embodied Activities in Face-to-face and Mediated Settings: Social encounters in time and space. Palgrave MacMillan.

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“Allison had been recommended to me by Sandy Thompson and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen as editor for my book “Intonation units revisited” to appear in their series “Studies in language and social interaction” with John Benjamins. As a non-native-speaker, I found her suggestions and comments of invaluable help. With substantial linguistic insight and great professional editorial consideration, she reliably identified awkward formulations and clumsy constructions, as well as the usual comma mistakes throughout the manuscript, to turn the language of my book into the impeccable English required by the publisher. Her meticulousness, her time and resource management, her immediate responses to queries, and her insightful comments on suggestions for changes made it a great pleasure to work with her. I will certainly ask for her help with future manuscripts and I already have and will continue recommending her to colleagues in Germany and beyond. The value of her services cannot be overestimated.”

~ Dagmar Barth-Weingarten, University of Potsdam
Barth-Weingarten, Dagmar. (2016) Intonation Units Revisited: Cesuras in talk-in-interaction [Studies in Language and Social Interaction, 29]. John Benjamins.

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“Allison did a beautifully professional job with copyediting our volume Language Contact and Change in the Americas, which is currently in press with John Benjamins. This edited volume contains 17 chapters by different authors, all with copious examples in foreign and endangered languages. Allison was able to balance the task of helping authors clarify their points on the one hand, with maintaining their individual voices on the other. She has an excellent eye for detail and was vigilant in formatting the chapters according to the publisher’s instructions. At the same time, she was able to deftly handle foreign language material and technical terminology without introducing errors. She was punctual and communicative, and thanks in large part to her services the publisher was pleased with the manuscript.”

~ Andrea Berez-Kroeker, University of Hawai’i at Manoa
Diane Hintz, SIL International
Carmen Jany, California State University, San Bernardino
Berez-Kroeker, Andrea, Diane Hintz, & Carmen Jany (Eds.). (2016) Language contact and change in the Americas: Studies in honor of Marianne Mithun [Studies in Language Companion Series, 173]. John Benjamins.

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“Allison has been my research assistant and the editor for a very complicated academic book project, involving three co-authors and requiring a large amount of organization and management of deadlines and chapter reconciliation. In addition, the book has hundreds of examples transcribed from conversations, which require consistent formatting and precise rendering of each transcription symbol. For me and my co-authors, she has been an absolutely ideal editor who is a pleasure to work with. Having served on her dissertation committee, I can testify that she herself is a talented writer with an excellent sense of style in written English. As an editor, she is a highly effective proofreader and a skilled and efficient multi-tasker and time manager, with a clear head for keeping track of details. She is superbly well-organized, reliable and supportive in responding and communicating, and she admirably maintains a calm demeanor under the pressure of deadlines and many duties. 

Allison has a wide range of editing experience, including extensive work with non-native writers of English to improve their style and communicability. I have already recommended Allison for several other editing jobs, and would not hesitate to recommend her for any others which would benefit from her writing and editorial experience, competence, skills, and collaborative personality.”

~ Sandra A. Thompson, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Santa Barbara, Department of Linguistics
Thompson, Sandra A., Barbara A. Fox, & Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen. (2015) Grammar in everyday talk: Building responsive actions. Cambridge University Press.

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“Allison Adelman was an ideal Assistant Editor for How Languages Work; she was not only a rigorous and meticulous editor of the text, she also played an invaluable role in helping me construct the larger strategic plan for the project, and in corresponding with the staff of the publishing house and the contributing authors. She helped to keep me on task when I had many other things to attend to, and was extremely hard working and successful at meeting deadlines.

It is difficult to imagine a more effective, professional, and pleasant partner to work with.”

~ Carol Genetti, Professor in the Department of Linguistics, and Dean of the Graduate Division at University of California, Santa Barbara
Genetti, Carol (Ed.). (2014) How Languages Work: An Introduction to Language and Linguistics. Cambridge University Press.