I am a careful and sensitive editor with experience of many different editing environments, including work in newspapers, educational publishing and the web. My strong organisational skills mean that I can edit to tight deadlines.
My extensive experience as a writer means that I bring a writer’s perspective to any editing task as well as editing experience and strong English language skills.
Experience of writing for both print and web gives me the ability to edit both kinds of writing. I can also turn printed text into web-ready copy through editing and/or rewriting.
Experience
Community newspaper editing
For two years I was editor of Leys News, a community newspaper serving the estates of Blackbird Leys and Greater Leys. This part-time freelance role involved planning each issue, commissioning and editing articles and proofreading the finished pages. Contributors were all volunteers, varying wildly in writing ability and style. My challenge was to bring internal consistency to the newspaper through my editing while still letting each contributor’s voice be heard.
Overseeing the progress of each issue required strong project management skills. I am proud to say that staffing problems, internet blackouts and computer crashes never managed to make the paper late in going to press.
During my time at Leys News I also created the paper’s first house style manual and trained aspiring journalists.
Editing work in publishing
Freelance work for Pearson Education on Tout le monde, the electronic educational materials for French learners at primary school level. For Level 1, I was an editor from manuscript stage through to UAT stage. More recently, I worked on Level 3 of the same product.
Sub-editing and proofing
Freelance sub-editing (including layout in Quark Xpress) at various regional newspapers, including the Reading Chronicle, the Bucks Free Press and the Oxford Journal.
Work as editorial assistant for The DOOR, which involved subbing, proofing and maintaining the online version of the newspaper.
Various freelance proofreading jobs, including work at Polo Times.
Web editing
Extensive experience of editing and uploading web content using various different content management systems. This includes a couple of months working full-time for Sesame as in-house web editor.
At Leys News, was responsible for updating the newspaper’s website. This involved editing print articles to make them web-friendly as well as writing new web content.
Also experience of taking extracts from published books and turning them into web-ready, search engine optimised copy.
