This post is intended for authors who are using MS Word to prepare a manuscript, paper, report or other document. It highlights some of the aspects that many people get wrong, in the hope that others won’t make the same mistakes. Of course, a Word document will sometimes get converted Read more
Do you want to improve your academic/non-fiction writing? If so, you’ve come to the right place. This post is aimed at authors of journal papers, technical web content or other non-fiction material, who want to produce top-quality writing. While other posts have focused on simple proofreading tips for students and Read more
Getting your manuscript or paper back after it has been proofread/edited is an exciting time. You’re desperate to dive in for the final push before submission. But, wait, what’s this? Your editor has added lots of comments and queries to your Word document, and now you’re not sure what you Read more
Writing in English is hard, even when it’s your first language. It’s full of peculiar quirks and exceptions that will often trip up even the wariest of native speakers. So, I have huge respect for people who write using English as a second language (ESL) – after all and like Read more
Lots of my clients ask me whether their manuscript will be “perfect” or “free from errors” after I’ve edited or proofread it. The answer to this – from me and perhaps any other editor who is being completely honest – will generally be along the lines of: “Probably not. I’ll Read more
Following on from a previous blog discussing proofreading tips for students (& others), I stumbled across a very helpful video on YouTube recently. It’s called Word 2016 Tutorial: A Comprehensive Guide to Word for Anyone by Sali Kaceli and contains tips and tricks that many users might find useful. I’ve Read more
Many independent authors, academics and businesses contact me to ask for their paper, manuscript, blog, etc to be proofread as soon as they have finished writing it. This usually leads to a discussion about whether they actually need a copy-editor rather than a proofreader. Generally, this situation arises because many Read more
The topic of this blog has already been briefly discussed here; however, this post aims to give a lot more detail and advice on how to check your document after it has been proofread and returned to you. Firstly, and just to clarify, this blog is written for the intended Read more
This post is definitely not giving away editorial trade secrets and doesn’t mean that my colleagues need to release the hounds to shut me up before I can do any more harm. However, some clients probably could do some basic proofreading tasks for themselves… Introduction The aim of this post Read more
It’s simple, isn’t it? A client wants their written text to be edited and a proofreader wants to help with this. But how do they go about things to make sure they’re both happy at the end of it? All too often I see a vague description of work by Read more