Tess Rankin
Tess Rankin is Founder and Editor at Tess Rankin Editing and Translation Services. She completed her PhD in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures in 2018.
GSAS: Tess, we’re so happy to have you with us today. Tell us a little bit about your research and what got you interested in your chosen field.
Tess Rankin: I did my PhD in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures. I had studied comparative literature as an undergrad, and I enjoyed that interdisciplinary approach. I was also interested in languages and literatures and wanted to work with languages other than English. After graduating, I lived in Spain for a year and wanted to get back into research and writing.
The dissertation I ended up writing (now a book under contract with Liverpool University Press) was on four novels from the 1940s by women in Spain and Latin America. They’re novels with young women protagonists who have strange experiences of their gender, and I read these works through the lens of scientific discourse that was circulating in the popular imagination around that same time. So I was trying to understand what the felt experience of gender is—thinking about it as sensorial, material, relational, and affective—and how that was shaped by our ideas of scientific concepts; not necessarily a rigorous understanding of science, but one that was circulating among the general public.
I actually started the PhD without a clear idea of what my research was going to be. I was also very open to the professional outcomes of the PhD. I knew I wasn’t necessarily looking for a tenure-track job. I saw it more as a five-to-six-year commitment to try something, and then I would figure out what was next, which I think was helpful because it removed a lot of the pressure, and it also allowed me to see alternative (“alt-ac”) options as a possibility from the beginning.
GSAS: You have a very unique perspective—one that is clearly very committed to scholarly inquiry but at the same time open to seeing what happens, to seeing what life throws you. How did that turn into starting your editing business? Walk us through your career trajectory.
Tess: While I was “just focusing” on writing in grad school, I was also getting some experience elsewhere. I did some internships, including one at a publishing house. I specifically started focusing on editing, which is something I had done in undergrad (I edited the college paper).
In grad school I started to do more and more of that with my colleagues’ work. At some point it became more than just friends swapping papers for feedback, and someone said, this is real work, you should charge for this work. Which I appreciated! I didn’t see it that way at the time, but I was conveniently positioned to have a background in Spanish and Latin American studies and knowledge of grammar conventions in English and particular knowledge about editing—what kind of things to look for. So I started focusing on that, and I slowly grew a freelance editing and translation business, focusing on academic editing and also some translations for the museum/art world.
After my PhD, I was really lucky to get a post doc at NYU in the Spanish Department, where I managed the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies. My title was Managing Editor, and that role, which is fairly broad, involved managerial work, copy editing, and proofreading, but the bulk of what I was doing was academic editing. I was there for four years, and that was really helpful for seeing how the publishing, editing, and peer review process works. It was a really valuable experience, and when it ended I felt pretty ready to go into my own business, especially because I already had enough clients I had accumulated during grad school and the post doc to where I felt like that was feasible.
GSAS: What is your favorite thing about the work you do?
Tess: Working with the authors and getting to read their wonderful work. I get to read far more broadly than I would just doing my own research, and I learn so much. I read work from a wide range of fields, even if it’s usually in the humanities, and it’s also fun to see the connections. My job usually isn’t to give content-specific feedback or to direct authors to bibliographical sources, but because I do see the connections between the different things my clients are doing, it’s really fun to say, “Oh, I read something about this! Here’s a link.”
That’s my favorite thing—building relationships with the authors and feeling like I’m supporting them in what often feels like a lonely process. I know, having gone through it myself. Sometimes the collaboration that happens in editing is purely on the page, but a lot of it is also emotional, and there’s a little bit of editorial therapy. [laughs] It’s important for me that my clients know there’s someone else out there who is invested and totally on their side.
GSAS: I think it’s really unique that you started your own business. A lot of times when we think of possible paths for PhDs, we think academia or industry, but you’ve chosen a third route that I think also really makes sense for our times, especially post-pandemic. What advice would you give to grad students who are interested in starting their own business, as you have done?
Tess: One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced is framing my work both to myself and other people as, “Oh, this is not just a freelance thing that I do on the side; I have an editing business.” But it’s a challenge, especially when careers in academia (and industry too) are so codified, as in, you have very specific titles. But if you’re self-employed no one is telling you what you can call yourself. So it’s been a growth process to go from saying “I do editing” to “I am an editor.”
I always feel like I could be more business-minded! But I’ve been doing freelance work—and in particular, academic editing work—for over eight years, so I had time to hone these skills while I was still in the PhD on top of my academic work. When I decided to go full time, I was in a place where I had a baseline of business. If I didn’t have established clients already writing to me periodically, that would’ve been scary. So to the extent that you can use the PhD to gain experience in the thing that you want to do, that’s really helpful. Just so you’re setting yourself up as much as possible.
Seek out resources from people in your industry about how to have a business in that industry—you can look for webinars on how to run a freelance business, how to do content marketing, etc. There are resources out there, so look out for that, especially in the beginning when the business is a little slower and you have time for that sort of professional development.
And use grad school as an opportunity to explore. Not everyone can explore in the same way—there are limitations, like whether you can work or work without a visa—but there is a little bit more flexibility in your grad school career to get a part-time job or to experience another area that you're interested in exploring. It’s also important to figure out what you like about grad school. For example, do you really like organizing conferences? Or networking with other scholars? Or is it doing research, or writing articles or teaching? If there is something really compelling to you, hold onto that. You can keep doing that in an academic career or in an industry career.
GSAS: Thank you, that is so helpful to know! Do you have one final piece of advice for graduate students that you’d like to leave us with?
Tess: Give yourself credit. One of the things that becomes normalized in grad school—even if you have a supportive committee giving you excellent feedback on your research—there’s rarely anyone telling you that you’re doing a good job generally.
People are saying, “That’s a very clear argument!” But no one is saying, “Hey you’re really developing these project management skills, and you made this process run so smoothly. Thank you for doing that.” People aren’t usually saying you’re doing a good job and thanking you for your day-to-day work.
It’s really nice to work with people who appreciate what you do and give you credit for your skills. And you can have that in life, it is out there in the world. If you’re not getting that in grad school, find the spaces where you can get that. It’s good for you professionally and emotionally. Give yourself credit for all the things you can do. I’m only now realizing all that I learned and all the skills I have, and that’s ten years after starting the PhD. So give that encouragement to yourself.