About Us: Essentials Worth the Read
![Writing Triage ServicesPARENT TESTIMONIALS & FEEDBACK: All quoted clients are parents of 12th grade college applicants for the 2016-17 academic year."Thank you so much! [My daughter's] spirits are lifted because of you. My eternal gratitude…](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/566e51371115e0874930fcb9/1480923525552-QO6608CECOY2AW27AFBQ/Parent+Testimonials+Color+1.jpg)
Writing Triage Services
PARENT TESTIMONIALS & FEEDBACK: All quoted clients are parents of 12th grade college applicants for the 2016-17 academic year.
"Thank you so much! [My daughter's] spirits are lifted because of you. My eternal gratitude." - K.T. - Mom
"I received your info from a fellow mocha mom in the L.A. area....Thanks again [for editing my daughter's essays. We have] two other essays that we think are finished and could use a second set of eyes." - T.B., Mom
"I like how you had him loop back around to that point for this answer. It's what he needs to get across." R.T., Dad
"Thanks for checking in with us. We have submitted everything and actually received favorable responses from two universities so far [in November]. I really appreciate all of your help! " C.R., Mom
"He's applying to about 20 schools and he's smart but he's busy. I was talking to _____'s mom and she just said, 'Here's Leslie's number. Call her!'...These are perfect and would have been perfect for Harvard. We're just going to have you edit the essays for the other 18 schools." - R.S., Mom
Writing Triage Services
STUDENT TESTIMONIALS & FEEDBACK: All quoted clients are 12th grade college applicants for the 2016-17 academic year.
"I'm not nervous about these anymore, not after that second revision. That right there - that's ready for the submit button!" - Ladera Heights/L.A. Student (Guidance via FaceTime Sessions and Googledocs)
"That's exactly what I was trying to say. Now I know how to say it for my other answers." Los Angeles Student (Guidance via Googledocs & Text)
"Wow. My words sound really good with those changes." Florida Student (Guidance via Microsoft Word)
"Man! Your Monday, first period text reminders always have me shook. Don't worry, I'm staying on the schedule you gave me." Los Angeles Student (Guidance viaI One-to-One In-Person Sessions, Googledocs and Text.)
"They're ready!" - Houston Student (Editing Only via Googledocs)
"That's what I was going for. I actually didn't realize I wasn't answering the prompt until you pointed it out. Okay, I'm going to select the other prompt. This is definitely what I want to go with." - Southern California Student (Guidance via Googledocs, Text and Phone Calls)
"OMG, Ms. Leslie. I LOVE IT! It's perfect now. Thank God." Southern California Student (Guidance via FaceTime and Googledocs)
Academic Editing Services
TESTIMONIALS | FEEDBACK | REPEAT REQUESTS
"I think this is great! It is very helpful when you point out what is not clear so I can resolve these issues for my committee. Let's move forward. Thanks so much. This relieves so much stress on my side." - Dissertation Client | Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania
"I agree with you that this [edited] letter reads and feels more specifically like the letter I initially thought would be more fitting for a Chicana/o or Ethnic Studies position at a teaching institution. Seeing my story weaved in a way that highlights or compliments my professional skills is very exciting, and to be honest, quite refreshing. I fully understand that letters need to be adjusted and I am up for the challenge. The follow-up questions you asked to my initial letter were great for getting me to think more personally about myself and the institution/department I was writing to." - Cover Letter Client | Adjunct Instructor and PhD Candidate, UCLA
"Hey Leslie! I have another project for you to edit. I would like to have the documents as polished, clear and concise as possible. Thank you again for saying yes!" - Post-Doctoral Program Application Client | PhD Candidate, UCLA
"The book is published. Thanks for handling the edits so I could submit it to publisher's editors. I'm taking your cards to my next anthropology conference." - Textbook Manuscript Client | Associate Professor, UC Irvine
"Hey, my proposal was funded! Engineers are not great with writing – or at least I’m not. Thanks for your help. It was worth it!" - Academic Grant Proposal Client - Associate Professor, UCLA
"You see why I desperately needed you!...Just finished thoroughly reading your changes on that manuscript and you are a GOD SENT! It is SOOOOO much better! I was talking you up today to someone else about how awesome you were and how your services were amazing." - Research Article Client | Associate Professor, University of New Hampshire
"It was exactly what I needed! Engineers are not good writers and I'm no different. I just needed it edited for readability and clarity. I got what I wanted." - Master's Thesis Client - Graduate Student, CSULA
"Thank you so much for being able to do this so quickly under such short notice... Thank you for your kind words about the work, as it was definitely a labor of love that I'm happy I've completed...I'm also giving your information to my advisor, as he may need your services. Thank you again and OO-OOP!" - Dissertation Client | PhD Graduate, UCLA
"Leslie, thank you so much for the feedback. I've had a chance to read through your comments, and they are very helpful. I think the format of this feedback is fine--especially for the prologue, intro, and sample chapter...The questions and points of clarification sections are particularly helpful at this point as I revise my manuscript. In particular, I appreciate your probing about the implications of my analysis." - Manuscript Client | Associate Professor, Fordham University
MS. POSTON'S STUDENTS: IN THEIR OWN WORDS
Want to know Leslie's impact as an educator of college-aspiring and college-attending youth for the last seven years?
Read what intended math and science majors have to say about their experiences in her freshman-level English Composition course in UCLA's Freshman Summer Program.
Read what 10th graders from 10 public high schools in Los Angeles and Pasadena have to say about their experience in her intensive two-week Writing and Critical Thinking course for VIP Scholars at UCLA.
Leslie D. Poston | Owner & Lead Editor
RELEVANT CREDENTIALS:
B.A., English & M.A., Sociology (Stanford)
English Composition Instructor, Freshman Summer Program (UCLA)
Writing & Critical Thinking Course Instructor, VIP Scholars (UCLA)
Movies 4 Mental Health College Facilitator (Art With Impact - Southern California Region)
CURRENT AND PAST MEMBERSHIPS:
American Copy Editors Society
Association of Writers and Writing Programs
National Association for College Admission Counseling
National Association of Independent Writers and Editors
VOLUNTEERISM:
A Better Chance (Alumna & Annual Applicant Interviewer)
Cardinal College Prep Facilitator and Curriculum Creator (Stanford Black Alumni Association of Southern California)
InsideOUT Writers (Creative Writing Teacher - Former Director of Programs)
Reading Through Time Book Club for Incarcerated Girls (Program Creator and Founding Facilitator)
-Vice Provost Initiative for Pre-College Scholars at UCLA (Admissions Interview Panelist)
WRITING SAMPLES
BLOG ENTRY: My Editing Approach
CREATIVE BLOG ENTRY: First Poston
Favorite Tagline I've Coined:
"Pen. Paper. Perseverance." - InsideOUT Writers
For more brief samples, check out some of our memes via A Draft Supreme on Instagram.
FIRST STRIKE: Educational Enclosures in Black Los Angeles
Author: Damien Sojoyner
SYNOPSIS: California is a state of immense contradictions. Home to colossal wealth and long portrayed as a bastion of opportunity, it also has one of the largest prison populations in the United States and consistently ranks on the bottom of education indexes. Taking a unique, multifaceted insider’s perspective, First Strike delves into the root causes of its ever-expansive prison system and disastrous educational policy.
Recentering analysis of Black masculinity beyond public rhetoric, First Strike critiques the trope of the “school-to-prison pipeline” and instead explores the realm of public school as a form of“enclosure” that has influenced the schooling (and denial of schooling) and imprisonment of Black people in California. Through a fascinating ethnography of a public school in Los Angeles County, and a “day in the life tour” of the effect of prisons on the education of Black youth, Damien M. Sojoyner looks at the contestation over education in the Black community from Reconstruction to the civil rights and Black liberation movements of the past three decades.
Policy makers, school districts, and local governments have long known that there is a relationship between high incarceration rates and school failure. First Strike is the first book that demonstrates why that connection exists and shows how school districts, cities and states have been complicit and can reverse a disturbing and needless trend. Rather than rely upon state-sponsored ideological or policy-driven models that do nothing more than to maintain structures of hierarchal domination, it allows us to resituate our framework of understanding and begin looking for solutions in spaces that are readily available and are immersed in radically democratic social visions of the future.
A Draft Supreme, LLC's competitive advantage is YOUR competitive advantage.
We match 20+ years of professional editing and writing experience with firsthand knowledge of what it takes and what it costs to succeed in higher education while having an unapologetic appreciation for one's marginalized intersectionality. It's a tough tightrope to walk amid immense pressure, joy, anxiety, gratitude and at times - outright hostility (from both the collegiate world and your own communities). Our clients on both ends of the university pipeline - PhD candidates and professors embarking on careers and determined high school seniors applying to those same elite institutions - do not have a standard issue educational experience so a standard issue editor simply won't do.
WRITE. SHINE. SUBMIT.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Our clients' research is groundbreaking and their deadlines are real. They need an editor who doesn't question their purpose, analysis or very existence in the academic space. Plus, they're only going to pay for a true expert in the written word that will enhance the verbiage they've been laboring over. A Draft Supreme has both a personal touch and a personal stake in their research's eventual publication.
THE DETAILS | Leslie has been editing the research papers and articles of her collegiate peers since being a freshman at Stanford University, where she also secured her first "professional" job as a copyeditor at The Stanford Daily. By her graduate year of college, she was interning at Manus & Associates Literary Agency and writing treatments for manuscripts, which spring boarded her into winning her category within the (Emmy) Television Academy Foundation's Class of 2001 Interns, where she worked in the Television and Book-to-Movie Departments at The Gersh Agency. Though she'd left the Ivory Tower, the same rules applied for making her unique voice heard while navigating the written and unspoken rules of a world that was not constructed with her in mind. When she exited the Hollywood scene and began her teaching and grant writing career in non-profits, her college classmates continued requesting her assistance on their theses and dissertations. Fortunately, Leslie's "Hollywood" jobs had sharpened her editing skills and empowered her to revise with exceptional precision and speed. It would take 15 more years of non-profit work before she founded A Draft Supreme, LLC to transition her part-time work into her full time vocation. Life is short but the road to tenure is long. Stellar writing is in short supply. Quite frankly, the academy needs more of it that also elevates research on and by marginalized peoples.
DON'T STRESS. SUBMIT.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Both parents and students become overwhelmed with the reality of applying while living hectic lives. What's more they experience inner conflict with which elements of their backgrounds to highlight.
THE DETAILS | Our owner, Leslie Poston, applied to 12 colleges of her choice (before the Common App) and had a great experience doing so. It was a season of excitement, hard work and determination that was NOT filled with anxiety and crippling self-doubt that many of her clients initially experience. Her single mother was only tasked with completing the FAFSA since Leslie took care of the other details. This is because she had a specific mindset and kit of storytelling and writing execution tools that she has further sharpened over the last two decades. What's more, she spent three years at the top of her boarding school class at Wasatch Academy in Utah through the A Better Chance program. Why does this matter? She knew how to navigate a world and culture of privilege and education that she did not come from and more than that, Leslie figured out how to thrive in that setting and convey what mattered on paper. As a writing instructor at two programs for underrepresented high school and college students at UCLA, Leslie knows what methods get results from teenagers and which ones simply shut them down. She now provides her own secret weapons and frank wisdom to those who aspire to attend her alma mater and any others. No boarding school or UCLA attendance required!