Think Tanks Editing and Proofreading Services

A report ends with eleven recommendations. Nine of them are things somebody should do, expressed as verbs — government should prioritise, employers should recognise, the sector should invest. Nobody in a position to act reads that as an instruction, because nothing in it says who signs what, what it costs, which existing thing stops, or what would have to be true for it to work.

We edit what think tanks and policy institutes produce — reports and their recommendations, executive summaries and briefing notes, costing and deliverability sections, evidence and methodology annexes, consultation responses and submissions, opinion and comment pieces drawn from research, media briefings and press releases, event and roundtable framing documents, funder and donor reporting, and transparency and funding disclosure documentation. Our editors work on the recommendation somebody has to implement.

The recommendation and its deliverability are what determine whether a report changes anything, and their failure is a verb without an owner. Policy recommendations are read by officials who need to know what they would be signing. We work through these so each recommendation names the body that would act and the instrument they would use — a regulation, a funding decision, guidance, a change in a formula — since a recommendation addressed to "government" is addressed to nobody; so the cost is stated with its basis and, crucially, where it would come from, given that a costed recommendation with no source is a spending bid and one with a named offset is a proposal; so what would have to stop is named where the recommendation requires resource, because officials know that everything is already allocated and a report that does not acknowledge it reads as unserious; so the recommendations are ranked, with the two that matter separated from the nine that are worth doing, as an unranked list is implemented from the top or not at all; so the implementation route is described with its realistic timescale including the legislative or consultation stage, since a recommendation requiring primary legislation and one requiring a guidance update are years apart; so the conditions for success are stated, including what would make it fail; and so anything the institute cannot cost is marked as uncosted rather than left vague. Reports written this way get quoted in submissions rather than in newspapers only.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including drafts, data and funder information. We are editors rather than policy analysts or economists, and we offer no view on your recommendations, costings or conclusions. What we can do is make each recommendation something somebody could sign.