WHAT I DO

I’m particularly attentive to accuracy and consistency. I'll ensure the activist you’ve named truly was a founder of the Black Lives Matter movement in Canada. If a teacher’s name appears as both Macdonald and MacDonald, I’ll notice. Or you may have said Jim Prentice was Alberta premier on May 31, 2015, even though Rachel Notley won the election the week before.

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Most people hand me their work with a mix of excitement and anxiety. My mission is to smooth out the writing so it flows, to ensure complex ideas are digestible, verb tenses are consistent and there are no footprints leading from the Department of Redundancy Department. Of course, I’ll correct spelling and grammar errors, too. However, it’s important to protect your natural voice. This is your writing and it should still read and sound that way.

 

There are many different style guides and often they don’t agree. Per cent or percent? Is it best to use American or Canadian spelling? Which foreign words should and should not be italicized? What matters is consistency. It’s important to decide which rules to adopt, and ensure we stick with them.

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If you’re writing for the government, a non-profit organization or a business, I can help eliminate jargon, awkward language and unnecessary wordiness from your report, study, news release or speech. I’ll ensure your meaning is clear and your writing is appropriate for the reader or audience you have in mind.

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If you’re an author, my focus is on non-fiction books of virtually any genre: memoir, biography, history, travel guides, academic texts and how-to or self-help manuals. (I love to read fiction, not edit it.) As we’ll be collaborating, you may want to ask me to edit a sample of your writing first. In fact, I encourage it.