SERVICES DELIVERED INTERNATIONALLY | UPLOAD YOUR SAMPLE TEXT HERE
SERVICES DELIVERED INTERNATIONALLY | UPLOAD YOUR SAMPLE TEXT HERE
Overview
You’ve worked hard to prepare your article, novel, essay, business proposal. Now it needs editing. Once it’s printed and published, that’s it. Game over! You need to get it right at the start – afterwards it will be too late. I will take it and examine it closely on three levels:
I am here to help you get this right, to work with you, discussing what you really want to say and the ways you can do this, making your writing something to be proud of.
The Three Levels
1. Basics:
Is the spelling correct? You’ve put it through the spellchecker and it passed the test. But what about there/their, loose/lose, its/it’s, to/too/two – all these are ‘correct’ as far as the spellchecker is concerned, but they mean different things.
What about paragraphing – each paragraph is a new point in an argument. It is one of the hardest things to get right. One-sentence paragraphs can frequently irritate the reader by making them feel talked down to. Too long, and people get lost. It’s not about the number of words, or even sentences – it’s about presenting an argument to your readership effectively.
Punctuation – just moving a comma can change the meaning of a sentence.
Grammar – there are a lot of rules here. It’s worthwhile getting it right.
2. Style:
The second is style, which is closely related to your expected readership. An example is fiction for children. How old are they? Is your work readable and interesting for them? Did you put ‘realise’ in one sentence and ‘realize’ in another? Both are right, but you have to make your mind up which you will be standardising. Your readers will notice these things almost subconsciously, and it will undermine the authority of your writing.
3. Substance:
The third is substance. If it is non-fiction, does the argument hang together. If it is a novel, is the characterisation consistent – does a person have blue eyes at one point and brown eyes a few chapters later? Are the characters convincing? Are you explaining too much, and leaving too little the reader?