People often assume ghostwriting is mostly about prose — finding a nicer way to say a thing. In research writing it rarely is.

The work is structural

Most drafts that arrive are not badly written. They are badly ordered. An argument that lands in the third paragraph should have opened; evidence sits far from the claim it supports; a conclusion introduces something new. Fixing that is the bulk of the job.

Sources come first

Before a sentence is written the sources have to hold. That means reading the primary material rather than a summary of it, checking that a cited paper says what it is claimed to say, and being willing to drop a good line when the evidence does not support it.

The name on it is yours

The point of this work is that it disappears. It should sound like the person whose name it carries, not like me. That is the constraint that makes it interesting.