| P. O. Box 361195 Milpitas, CA 95036 |
408-262-5250 |
He -- Bachelor of Science degrees in both Math and Chemistry, and 16 years of computer programming followed by over 25 years of technical writing about computer software.
She -- Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in English, several years in office work and administration, several more years in adult education, teaching ESL, and running a learning center for grades 4-12.
Together -- we can edit your document (memo, report, menu, advertisement, newsletter, web site, whatever) and help you make it the best it can be. We're right in Silicon Valley.
Editing deals with a number of elements. Here are a few of them:
Spelling
How helpful is a spelling checker? Not as much as you might hope.
You may use a spelling checker, but that only tells you that each series of letters is a word--not that it's the correctly spelled form. Does your document say "illicit" when it should say "elicit"? Does it include simple slip-ups like "it's" (a contraction of "it is") instead of "its" (meaning "belonging to it") or "who's" instead of "whose"? We find and fix such problems.
Grammar and punctuation
The grammar checkers we have seen report far too many false errors. They can usually handle simple sentences, but as the sentences get more complex, the grammar checkers complain about perfectly valid constructions. We have an excellent command of English language grammar.
Copy editing
This comes in three basic levels: light, medium, and heavy. You can find an excellent description of these three at this page on the Bay Area Editors' Forum site. Clearly, a light edit takes the least time (costs the least), and the others would take longer (cost more). We can handle any of the three, but most documents often benefit greatly from even a light edit.
Proofreading
In the world of publishing, a proofreader is just that—a reader of proofs. They look at typeset copy and compare it against a manuscript to verify correctness and style and to check for typos, as well as the nit picky nuances of kerning, spacing, rivers of blanks in the text, widow lines, orphan lines, consecutive word breaks and the like. If that's what you need, we can do it.
Idiom and Localization
American English is different from British English, Australian English, Indian English, South African English, and so on. We can suggest ways to help your English be immediately understood by the American English reader.
Author's Voice
An editor can totally revise a document, overriding the author's "voice" by rephrasing and rewriting. While we certainly could do that, we prefer to use a light touch and let the author "shine through."
We have produced and maintained web sites for a number of years, including:
Drop us an to ask about our services. No job is too small.
Here are some useful resources. Check back from time to time -- the list will grow.
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