BC Academic Writing and Statistical Consultation, USA (all services on this website are temporarily paused until further notice)
For any inquiries, please contact me at:
billychen6@hotmail.com
Please contact me as soon as possible in case I could not work with you due to other ongoing projects. Your identity will be confidential. I will not reveal your information to a third-party without your consent. I do not do ghostwriting or p-hacking, so knowing your prior research would help me understand where you are in terms of your knowledge levels and facilitate our collaboration.
Review my current services or products on Upwork. I believe that you could create an account on Upwork in most regions.
Education: PhD in Human Development and Family Studies at Iowa State University (with foci on quantitative and developmental psychology)
*Certificate in Developmental and Family Sciences Advanced Research Design and Methods, Iowa State University
Academic Positions:
(a) Postdoctoral Fellow, Human Development and Family Science, Auburn University (2022-2023); (b) Teaching Faculty, Human Development and Family Science, Florida State University (2021-2022); and (c) Instructor of Record, Human Development and Family Studies, Iowa State University (2018-2020)
Professional Societies and Activities:
(a) Member of American Psychological Association (APA; 2022-present); (b) Member of National Council on Family Relations (NCFR; 2018-present); (c) Ad hoc reviewer for Family Relations (a total of 20 reviews; 2018-present), Developmental and Psychopathology (1 review; 2024-present), Current Psychology (1 review; 2024-present) and 2024 Small Grants Program for Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD)
Services Provided
(a) Editing academic manuscripts in social sciences (e.g., developmental psychology, family science): Please inquire about the price after you have had a draft and a targeted journal in mind. I provide different levels of editing ranging from proofreading, copyediting, line/deep editing, to developmental editing.
The payment rates, per 1,000 English words, are $100 for developmental editing, $72 for line/deep editing, $48 words for copyediting, and $24 for proofreading. Within 2 business days of accepting your request, I will let you know whether an upgrade of service is recommended to ensure that your manuscript will be competitive to be published in an SSCI journal.
On accepting your request for a designated service, please allow me 5 business days to complete the agreed-on task. If you request either line/deep or developmental editing, I will provide a cover letter for the manuscript as a supplementary service.
To ensure that you will be satisfied with my services, I will lead you to a third-party platform Upwork, where we can agree on a contract to protect both of us. Regarding the payment, for instance, if you want me to do developmental editing on your manuscript written in 10,000 words, you will need to pay $600 on Upwork in advance and the rest $400 after receiving my edited manuscript or document. The same logic applies to the other provided services on Upwork. That is, the 60% of the total amount of payment is like a "deposit" so that I can focus on working on your document. You will need to pay the rest 40% of the total amount of payment on receiving the finalized, agreed-on document that I will submit on Upwork.
For developmental editing, which most of my clients need and benefit from, we need
to have two rounds of editing. You are required to carefully read my edits,
comments, and questions, as well as provide me with the revised manuscript in a timely
fashion so that I can do the second round of editing for you. Please allow 5 business
days for each round of developmental editing. Your revised manuscript cannot alter more than 30% of your
initial manuscript submitted to me.
(b) Quality evaluation report
If you are not certain about the competitiveness of your manuscript, you could request a service called "Quality Evaluation Report," wherein I will provide you with ratings (i.e., ranging from 1 to 5) on your manuscript's (a) novelty and originality, (b) data sufficiency, (c) manuscript structure, (d) potential for publication in Social Science Citation Index (SSCI)-indexed journals, (e) writing quality, and (f) adequacy of figures and tables. You need to pay $32 for a three-pager, $40 for a four-pager, and $48 for a five-pager for this service on Upwork.
(c) Pre-submission peer review for manuscripts
I will charge based on the number of words in your manuscript submitted on Upwork. For manuscripts that are shorter than 5,000 words ($135), shorter than 10,000 words ($180), shorter than 15,000 words ($225) and between 15,000 and 20,000. For this service, please allow 10 business days for me to complete.
(d) Consultation on research design, (advanced) quantitative modeling, and academic writing in social sciences
You should have had preliminary plans in mind before consulting me. Importantly, I will serve as a consultant instead of a ghostwriter. It is crucial for my clients to produce their own products. You will pay $50 (for 30 minutes) or $100 (for 60 minutes) for my consultation. It will be a virtual meeting on Zoom via Upwork. If it is a statistical problem, please prepare your employed data, syntax, input, and output for me to skim during the meeting, I will request for such files before or after the meetings. The goal is to help you out, so if your questions cannot be solved during the meeting, I will use my time (in 5 business days) for you to thoroughly look at your files, identify the issues, and try my best to either resolve the issue or provide my professional opinions for your considerations.
(e) Consultation on how to survive in a social science program in the United States
The first semester is overwhelming, Feel free to book my time to talk it over. A deliverable including a course of action will be provided to you within 5 business days after our virtual meeting on Zoom via Upwork. You will pay $50 (for 30 minutes) or $100 (for 60 minutes) for my consultation.
(f) Editing application materials (e.g., a statement of purpose, curriculum vitae) for graduate schools in the United States.
To optimize your documents, please provide me with the requirements that the schools or programs post on their websites. Detailed information about the programs that you intend to apply are needed as well. The payment rates are identical to my academic editing services. That is, the payment rates, per 1,000 English words, are $100 for developmental editing, $72 for line/deep editing, $48 words for copyediting, and $24 for proofreading. The request can be submitted on Upwork.
(g) Translating academic manuscripts in social sciences
For translating written English into traditional Chinese (Mandarin) or vice versa, the payment rate is $100 per 1,000 English or Mandarin words. The request can be submitted on Upwork.
Background
I received rigorous quantitative training at Iowa State University under the supervisions of Drs. Daniel Russell and Thomas Schofield. Also, my abilities to edit and polish academic writings were honed by Drs. Mallory Lucier-Greer and Catherine O'Neal in my postdoctoral training at Auburn University. My unique strengths as an academic editor involve my faculty-level knowledge about psychological and developmental constructs as well as advanced quantitative modeling.
I taught a lifespan development course at Iowa State University for four semesters as well as an adolescent development course and a research methods course for Florida State University for three semesters. I have been reviewing for and publishing as the first author of manuscripts in SSCI journals (Impact Factors = 2.2 and 2.7, respectively). As such, I can provide you with a broad array of constructive comments during the editing processes.
Other than serving as the founder and working for BC Academic Writing and Statistical Consultation, I have been an academic editor and a regular evaluator of psychological manuscripts for TopEdit (2023-present), where I mainly do developmental editing to help scholars in psychology publish their manuscripts in respected journals. My rating at TopEdit is 9.7 out of 10. I was awarded as a Diamond Editor (ranked top 0.1%) at TopEdit in July 2024.
My strengths are that I am familiar with APA 7 because I have been in social sciences for over a decade and publishing using APA style. If you are in social sciences, you should have known that most academic writings are in accordance with APA style.
I
will edit or comment on Word documents, so please make sure that you have
Microsoft Word on your laptops or personal computers.
FQA
Q1. Why would I work with you instead of other academic editing services?
A1: I had experiences in teaching and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students in research-intensive universities such as Iowa State University (2018-2021), Florida State University (2021-2022), and Auburn University (2022-2023) in the United States for 6 years. I have edited thousands of academic works, including manuscripts, dissertations, and government reports. I have published two manuscripts as the first author in respected journals in my field. The manuscript published in 2021 has been cited 20 times according to Google Scholar and the latest publication based on two large samples is expected to be cited more than 20 times because my coauthors and I addressed important methodological (i.e., selection effect) and practical issues (i.e., neighborhood effects) that have been debated in our field for decades. If you are interested in my publications, please find them on Research Gate at:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chia-Feng-Chen
As an instructor at Iowa State University and Florida State University, I not only graded students' works but also provided thorough comments and edits to ensure that my students could improve their academic writings over time. Students at both schools responded well to my approach. My overall course evaluations were excellent across schools (M = 4.33 out of 5 at Iowa State University, N = 209; M = 4.73 at Florida State University, N = 259). Specifically, my teaching at Iowa State University was recognized by a Teaching Excellence Award and my teaching ratings at Florida State University were much higher than my ex-colleagues.
As a former teaching faculty member for Florida State University, it was easy for me to know whether the assignments that I graded were from the same students. As such, I will try my best to retain your "own voices," especially in your personal statements, whenever possible, otherwise, admission committee members might think that your documents could not reflect who you really are, which would lower your chances of being admitted to your targeted programs.
Q2. Why are you providing these services even though you are still in academia?
A2. I would want talented scholars to be comfortable in academia because after entering graduate school, you need to write papers, reports, and manuscripts as an academic. I would encourage you to get used to these writings before the end of the first semester, which is usually the toughest one for graduate students. Also, I like helping students and scholars, which simply makes me happy.
I had experiences in working with various kinds of (copy) editors, but they did not provide me with the needed helps because they did not know much about research methods, theories, statistics, or how to enhance the value of a manuscript. Publishing manuscripts with cutting-edge modeling also needs certain capabilities and training. I am not only good at organizing manuscripts and academic works but also an expert in advanced quantitative modeling. As such, I would give you the best answers that I could come up with during our cooperation. If interested, you could find my analytical expertise below on this webpage using a smartphone or on the right of this webpage using a personal computer.
My Expertise
Academic Writing and Editing
Due to my academic background, I would be most helpful to polishing application materials for U.S. graduate schools or manuscripts in social sciences, especially in psychology, developmental science, and family science. I would be happy to edit and comment on your curriculum vitae and statement of purpose for applying for a graduate school (fees are needed, as previously stated). I endeavor to let you learn something during our cooperation or editing processes and the edited works by me will increase your chances of getting admitted to your targeted programs. As a former instructor for research-intensive university and a reviewer for academic journals for years, I have been known for my high levels of conscientiousness and professionalism. I will navigate you through the revising processes if you request developmental editing on your application materials or manuscript.
I am providing these services because I do not think that the best talents should be rejected by their targeted programs merely due to their unfamiliarity of academic writing. Unfortunately, in social sciences, especially in psychology, most academic works are written in certain, formal ways. Polishing your academic writing skills is inevitable along your academic road.
Some studies have shown that non-native English speakers encounter greater obstacles than native English speakers when submitting manuscripts to journals for review (e.g., Amano et al., 2023). I have witnessed scholars whose native languages are not English struggle with academic publication despite their rich statistical knowledge. That is, they might have had the skills to conduct great social sciences, but their limited abilities in English academic writing have hindered them from publishing their works. If you are in the same boat, I will be a good resource for you. Although being a native English speaker or not might not influence your English academic writing (Hyland, 2016), practically, it may play a role in your communications with editors and reviewers at your target journals and may implicitly affect their justifications or decisions. I hope that with my services and helps, the levels of these subjective biases that you could have encountered would be diminished.
Methodological and Analytical Expertise
If you need my help with your academic manuscripts, I could provide professional suggestions on various kinds of quantitative analyses, such as longitudinal analysis, structural equation modeling, multilevel modeling, mixture modeling, and meta-analysis, or other simpler quantitative analyses, such as t-test, (M)ANOVA, simple regression, hierarchical regression, logistic regression, moderation, and indirect effects testing. You could book my times on Upwork for such statistical consultations.
I mainly use SPSS and Mplus, so I would be most helpful when you could provide me with your data, syntax, and outputs in such formats. I also use SAS and HLM to deal with multilevel analysis and will learn R Studio soon (because this may be the only free statistical software moving forward), so what statistical software that you have used would not be a big issue. However, I would ask clarification questions if you lack clear explanations of statistical analysis or of modeling, or let you know if your current statistical knowledge may hinder you from publishing your manuscripts. If you want to consult me during the revision process, it will be important for me to know how much you know about what you have done statistically or methodologically. The consultation fee will be $50 per 30 minutes and $100 per 60 minutes. A deliverable will be submitted on Upwork for you within 5 business days after the meeting.
Regarding my quantitative background, as previously mentioned, I was trained by my PhD mentors Drs. Daniel Russell and Thomas Schofield at Iowa State University. Both of them are excellent and experienced quantitative psychologists. Also, in my postdoctoral position, Drs. Lucier-Greer and Catherine O'Neal honed my capabilities to translate research into practice (e.g., using less jargon, simpler languages to better communicate with target audiences). At Auburn University, I mentored five graduate students to improve their academic writings and knowledge about advanced quantitative modeling (e.g., structural equation modeling, multilevel modeling). I also mentored more than 10 graduate students as a teaching assistant in a graduate-level multilevel modeling course at Iowa State University. These experiences, along with my undergraduate teaching (a total of 468 undergraduate students), benefited me in terms of navigating my clients with different levels of academic knowledge through their writing or research processes.
Although I would do my best to help you, please remember that any works should be your own works. My goal is to help polish your works to a degree that they are competitive to be considered being published in your target journal. I work well with various kinds of clients (e.g., non-traditional students, clients with different cultural backgrounds), but your efforts are needed to get the required documents done. As stated earlier, I am still in academia, so I will not be a ghostwriter for you. In your cover letter to an action editor of an SSCI journal, you could elect to acknowledge that you have used my service to polish your manuscript, and that has been fine in academia, wherein we do not want scholars whose first languages are not English to be treated unfairly. As such, you would not need to worry about ethical issues on requesting my services. I will let you know if our cooperation would be considered unethical.
Conceptual Expertise
In addition to statistical consultation, I could provide you with in-depth feedback on research topics related to parenting and contexts of parenting, fathering, family dynamics, gender, culture, ethnicity, personality, child and adolescent well-being, individual and family development, feminism, PTSD family, immigrant family, as well as military family.
More About Me
As mentioned, at Iowa State University, I obtained a Teaching Excellence Award, which recognized the top 10% of graduate students who involved in teaching yearly, and a Certificate in Developmental and Family Sciences Advanced Research Design and Methods. Also, I received an Honors (PhD) Student Award from NCFR.
My expertise includes academic writing (e.g., I published two SSCI journal articles as the first author, I have been serving as an ad hoc reviewer for SSCI journals, such as Development and Psychopathology as well as grant proposals for SRCD), proofreading, copyediting, admission editing, and academic editing, checking and conducting quantitative modeling (e.g., multilevel modeling, structural equation modeling, mixture modeling, meta-analysis), as well as research methods (e.g., research design, sampling tactics, computing statistical power). Please feel free to ask me questions during our cooperation or if you are curious about what it would be like to cooperate with me.
Between 2021 and 2022, I served as a teaching faculty member for Florida State University. I remotely taught "Contexts of Adolescent Development" and "Methods of Studying Families and Children." Students at Florida State University thought highly of me and I also enjoyed teaching them. I would hope that your works (if you intend to apply for a graduate school in the United States) could be comparable to those written by my junior or senior students at Florida State University. However, the flow, cohesiveness, and organization of your works will be better after my editing. Essentially, I will help improve your works based on where you are at and endeavor to help you be an elite scholar in the future.
Between 2022 and 2023, I served as a postdoctoral fellow at Auburn University. In addition to what I have stated, I collaboratively conducted a total of 150 research summaries for the U.S. Department of Defense and collaboratively accomplished a number of research reports as requested by the agency.
I consider myself a developmental psychologist and methodologist. I am enthusiastic about data analysis, especially about advanced quantitative modeling. I think highly of integrity, so I will not work with you if you use fake data or p-hack. I will let you know if I note suspicious statistical results during our cooperation. I hope that, with my services, you could get admitted to the programs that you desire to study in or publish your manuscripts in journals that you respect or like.
Billy