Proofreading and editing translations
| 26 July 2024
I often come across authors’ translations into English when I’m copy-editing and proofreading academic texts. These are mainly translations of interviews that the author (usually based in the EU and whose first language isn’t English) has conducted with participants during their research. These crop up in PhD theses fairly regularly, and this is the Continue reading
Copy-editing for a publisher
| 2 June 2021
I’ve been proofreading and copy-editing professionally since 2009, but almost all of my work has been for non-publishers. I’ve worked almost exclusively on non-fiction texts and a lot of my work involves copy-editing texts for clients whose first language isn’t English. On the whole, my clients have been happy for me to do whatever work Continue reading
Local CIEP meetings for editors and proofreaders – the benefits
| 8 January 2021
Image by Gerd Altmann at Pixabay We had our final CIEP local group (South Warwickshire and Coventry) meeting of the year in December 2020. As usual, it was great to see lots of familiar faces and to have a good chat and a laugh about all sorts of things, some work-related and some not. Members Continue reading
Proofreading, copy-editing and dreaming about vegetables during lockdown: the sequel
| 11 December 2020
Well, it’s three months since my blog post about how I’d been doing since the lockdown started in March. The subtitle to this blog post is deliberately tongue in cheek, because the update is that not a great deal has changed. I’m still doing virtually nothing in terms of socialising in person, apart from seeing Continue reading
Libraries revisited via The Library Book by Susan Orleans
| 20 October 2020
In March 2018, I wrote a blog post called Proofreaders, libraries and a love of reading. It was about my introduction to libraries from a very early age and my continued use of them, about the decline in the use of libraries and, sadly, about the closure of many of them across the UK. Libraries Continue reading
Proofreading, copy-editing and dreaming about vegetables during lockdown
| 26 August 2020
The early days – a proofreading shortage turns into busy weeks and months So it’s 26 August 2020 and we’ve been in lockdown for five months. I’ve barely left the house, apart from a few trips to the supermarket early on and a walk every day. I’m very grateful to have a garden, which I’ve Continue reading
Proofreading and copy-editing: enjoying good relationships with clients
| 12 June 2019
Every week I meet up with a good friend who lives locally for a chat and a coffee. She’s self-employed too, so the conversation inevitably turns to work at some point. My proofreading business is very different from her cleaning business, but we encounter many of the same challenges and enjoy similar aspects of Continue reading
How to check for repetition in your writing
| 27 April 2018
When I’m copy-editing non-fiction, which I specialise in, one of the things I check for is whether any aspects of the writing are so repetitious that they’re likely to annoy the reader or look like a poor style of writing. I find repetition easy to spot and fix, but that’s partly because I’m looking at Continue reading
Proofreaders, libraries and a love of reading
| 2 March 2018
During the last few months, various articles about beautiful libraries around the world have caught my eye, and I’ve posted some of them on my Facebook page. Something weird happens to me when I see pictures of shelves full of books. I feel happy and positive, as well as nostalgic, and generally feel a warm Continue reading
The ellipsis – how to use it in non-fiction
| 12 December 2017
The ellipsis You wouldn’t think three innocuous little dots would cause too many problems, but it’s clear from some of the texts I work on that some clients find that using the ellipsis properly and consistently can be a headache. Does it need a space before and after it? Should there be a space after Continue reading