Editing and proofreading

I have experience of many different editing environments, including:

  • Newspapers (weekly and bi-monthly)
  • Electronic educational materials
  • Company and charity websites
  • Blogs

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. I understand the difference between writing for print and writing for the web, and I can turn printed text into web-ready copy through editing and/or rewriting. My strong organisational skills mean that I can edit to tight deadlines.

Web editing and content uploading

I’m not a coder, but I’m a power user who can handle the idiosyncrasies of your CMS. I also have the skills to edit/rewrite the content I’m uploading. I’ve used Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress, Blogger and a number of custom-built content management systems. Recent work: I worked with the Love Food, Hate Waste team on a food-saving app aimed at Welsh speakers. My role was to upload recipe ingredients (using Drupal), but first I had to check the Welsh-language content and supply missing translations. Other work: in early 2011 I helped with a complete revamp of the Nuffield Trust website. This involved editing and rewriting content before uploading it to the new (Drupal) content management system. I was delighted when Torchbox, the agency I was working with, won a BIMA award for the site.

Community newspaper editing

For two years I was editor of the community newspaper Leys News. 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 for the journal Cancer World. Less recently, I've also done subbing and layout work 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, layout in Quark XPress and maintaining the online version of the newspaper.

Various freelance proofreading jobs, including work at Polo Times.