Editing and Proofreading Practices in Nigerian Academic Book Publishing

This study investigates the editing and proofreading practices employed in Nigerian academic book publishing, assessing the extent to which Nigerian university press publications and academic presses adhere to professional editing standards and how resource constraints affect the quality of published scholarly texts. Academic publishing in Nigeria serves the critical function of disseminating research and providing educational materials for tertiary institutions, but concerns about the quality of editing and proofreading in locally published academic books have been raised in professional publishing forums and academic quality assurance discussions. The study combines document analysis, examining a sample of 30 recently published academic books from five Nigerian university presses and private academic publishers, with semi-structured interviews with 20 editors, acquisitions managers, and authors from Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan, and Enugu publishing houses. Language quality assessment of the sampled texts examines typographical error rates, grammatical accuracy, citation consistency, and adherence to a declared style guide. Interview data examine editorial workflow, the roles of external peer reviewers versus in-house editors, proofreading stage practices, and the financial and timeline pressures on quality assurance. Findings reveal that editorial standards vary significantly, with university press publications generally maintaining higher baseline quality than commercially oriented academic publishers. Systematic copy-editing is bypassed in several houses due to time pressure and cost. Recommendations include the development of a Nigerian Academic Publishers Association minimum editorial standards charter and subsidised editorial training for junior publishing staff. Keywords: academic publishing, editing, proofreading, Nigerian university press, scholarly communication.