If you run a business, you probably know that customers appreciate clear communication. They want to be able to find important information quickly – for example, about products and services, how to find you or how to return an item…
Blog Archives
Why I love the Society for Editors and Proofreaders
As the romance of Valentine’s Day fades into the past and I attempt to retrieve the last remaining crumbs of chocolate from my box of Thornton’s, I realise it’s very nearly time to renew my vows to the Society for…
Tagged with: networking, professional associations, professionalism, SfEP
Posted in Editing and proofreading associations, Starting out, Working from home
Posted in Editing and proofreading associations, Starting out, Working from home
Tips for being concise in academic writing
In a recent conversation with an academic author, she told me that she’d like to write more concisely. I think she’s already good at this: she keeps her paragraphs and sentences to a manageable length and chooses her words carefully.…
What help can I get with my PhD thesis before proofreading?
If you’re studying for a doctoral qualification, you might be planning to have your thesis professionally proofread before you submit it to the examiners. Proofreading is the final stage of the work, when you want to iron out any spelling,…
Tagged with: doctoral students, language support, PhD thesis, student proofreading, university, writing support
Posted in Academic writing, Students
Posted in Academic writing, Students
8 ideas for taking a break
It can feel really hard to take a break when your schedule’s full or a piece of work is taking longer than expected, with other tasks piling up behind it. It’s tempting to just carry on, and I admit I’ve…
Getting into proofreading – making the most of your transferable skills
When writing my Spotlight entry for the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP) website, one of the questions I was asked was ‘What advice do you have for people starting out on an editorial career?’ Meeting new and established editors…
Tagged with: editing business, freelancing, proofreading business, setting up a business, transferable skills
Posted in Starting out, Working from home
Posted in Starting out, Working from home
How to create table headings and figure captions in Microsoft Word
If you’re writing a long document that contains lots of tables, figures or illustrations (for example, a company report or a PhD thesis), using Word’s ‘Insert Caption’ tool helps you format, number and list them more efficiently. In this post,…
Tagged with: captions, headings, Microsoft Word tips, PhD thesis, reports, tables and figures
Posted in Academic writing, Business writing
Posted in Academic writing, Business writing
School proofreading: Do teachers need a safety net too?
I have a confession to make: with a colleague, I proofread secondary-school reports. Not OFSTED reports – the ones that schools send home to students and their parents. I say ‘confession’ because when I mention this to friends and family,…
Tagged with: report writing, School proofreading, school reports, teachers
Posted in School proofreading
Posted in School proofreading
Six ways to improve your author–date (Harvard) reference list
If you’re writing a PhD thesis, your reference list could be longer than an entire journal article. Taming that monster can be tedious, but it’s worth taking the time to get it right. A reference list that looks cared for…
Tagged with: APA referencing, author-date referencing, CSE referencing, dissertations, Harvard referencing, theses
Posted in Academic writing
Posted in Academic writing
Desk bikes – the Tour de Your House
Last Wednesday was National Fitness Day in the UK. Keeping fit’s a doddle if you work from home, isn’t it? You start the day with yoga. Go swimming at lunchtime. On sunny days you put down your pen (or keyboard)…
Tagged with: desk bike, desk cycle, editing, freelancing, proofreading, Wellbeing, Working from home
Posted in Wellbeing, Working from home
Posted in Wellbeing, Working from home
Laura Ripper | Copy-editing and Proofreading 