Wishing everyone a prosperous, fulfilling, and above all healthy 2019! Here’s my look back on 2018 and what’s (hopefully) in the works for 2019.
(OK I’m a bit late coming back online. The Japanese consider up to January 7th the new year period, so our family—myself included!—is back on regular schedule just this week.)
2018 in review
I’m deeply grateful for how much ground I was able to cover in one year. I started off 2018 announcing to everyone that I was officially a freelance editor. Since then, I’ve been fortunate to build working relationships with a number of clients on such projects as:
- Proofreading an Oxford University Press economics book due out in 2019, The Globotics Upheaval.
- Copyediting economic policy research articles for VoxEU.org, the policy portal of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (ongoing).
- Editing academic papers, abstracts, and graduate theses.
- Writing English web articles, copyediting a clinic’s English website.
- Providing advanced English advice for business people.
It was an amazing year that brought more than I ever expected. What a great springing board into 2019.
Looking forward to 2019
So following up
☑ Specialize in academic editing
I love thinking about ideas and I love that academic editing gives me the opportunity to read and learn and think about new things. I deeply admire those of you who are driven to seek knowledge, to understand how things are in the world around us.
Academic editing is my small contribution to this world of knowledge. It allows me to support you in getting your ideas clearly across, so that your reviewers, colleagues, professors, and general readers think about your ideas, and not get distracted by errors or missing logic.
☑ Focus on multi-language authors
There are so many excellent academics who speak English as a second, third, fourth, etc. language. And different countries have different ways to structure how you write.
If you want to be taken seriously in the English-speaking world of academia, the rather sad reality is that you need to:
- Write in correct English. Don’t give the reader an excuse to dismiss you that you’re not “good enough” just because your English isn’t perfect.
- Structure the writing in the American/English-style logic. Otherwise, the reader might not give credence to your ideas.
This is not to say that all “native” English speakers can do these well either—and I like working with English-as-a-first-language speakers too 🙂
But I know what it feels like to not be taken seriously just because one is a “foreigner.” And so much of my editing experience has been with non-native speakers, so this is where I hope to help bridge the gap.
☑ Provide more useful content
Apart from editing work, I also hope to provide more useful content on my blog, to be shared via LinkedIn. I’m still planning this out, but do occasionally check in!
Looking forward to serving more of you in 2019!
Check out my services to see what I can offer you and for examples of past work. Or want to discuss? Please send me a request via the contact form or email me at info@theclarityeditor.com.
