Editorial style guides are my specialist area. In addition, I offer a range of editing and writing services:
- Clarity and consistency editing
- Website copy fix
- Informative content writing
- Proofreading and copyediting
- French-to-English translation
Clarity and consistency editing
Does your organisation have public-facing content written by authors with differing styles and perhaps differing levels of proficiency in the English language? My deep editing services can help you bring it to the requisite level of correctness and consistency.
Website copy fix
This can be a quick win. For many websites, it’s plausible to assume that a small fraction of pages drive the bulk of site visitor engagement and conversions. So it is, in effect, disproportionately worthwhile to get these pages right. I offer a service where I review the text content of five pages (up to about 3,000 words) and offer suggested edits and enhancements.
Informative content writing
People ask me, “Do you do copywriting?” My answer is: “It depends what you mean by copywriting.” I don’t specialise in the punchy, ‘make it pop’ copy often associated with marketing and advertising. And I’m not an SEO expert who promises to get you to the top of Google.
My focus is on making things clear and easy to understand – so that your readers enjoy reading it, understand it, and act on it. Forestry, pharmaceuticals, crop pests, motor insurance, injection moulding… I’ve tackled subjects I knew nothing about beforehand. That can be an advantage: starting from scratch forces me to go back to basics and really understand the material, which helps me explain it clearly to others.
Proofreading and copyediting
From a one-page letter to a 360-page annual report and accounts: I’ve got years of experience of proofreading. And of copyediting. There’s a difference between proofreading and copyediting:
- Proofreading addresses surface errors (spelling, typos, punctuation, grammar). True proofreading is the final step in the writing process, when the content and structure have already been edited.
- Copyediting should happen before proofreading. It goes deeper and takes longer. A copyeditor improves content, style, and readability while also correcting errors.
You might need something between the two. We can call that proof-editing.
French-to-English translation
I’m a French-to-English translator qualified with, and a member of, the Chartered Institute of Linguists. Translating was my near-full-time activity for about seven years. My clients were mainly mid-size organisations that had technical and business documents in need of translation, whether for internal use or for publication. I worked for wine producers, paint manufacturers, and makers of children’s toys and games, among others.
Although I haven’t been actively promoting this service in recent years, I welcome enquiries.