…Aaaaaand in a blink of an eye, 2021 is drawing to a close! My heartfelt gratitude to everyone in my life this whirlwind year 🙂 To wrap up, here’s my annual report with some plans for the coming year.
Even freelancers should compile an annual report. It’s nice to stake stock, reflect back and plan (and dream) forward.
[In this report…]
- Editing: Map of clients, numbers, and list of regular clients
- Writing: Links to writing projects.
- Learning & professional development: Conferences, editing-related learning, and reading recommendations
- Hopes for 2022
[A Canva slide show is embedded below with highlights of my report. The full text, however, is in the body of this post.]
The Clarity Editor Annual Report 2021Editor, writer, trainer.
Those words describe my professional self. But in 2021, I was also remote-school teacher, administrator, IT support, enforcer & cheerleader. Not to mention wife and friend.
The long lockdown in Thailand meant I had to swap those roles often, even every few minutes, all day every day for over 6 months. It was exhausting.
This relentless laboring made me decide one thing: I have stopped saying I’m a part-time worker. I’m full time.
Despite being utterly drained at times, I also enjoyed fulfilling moments and am proud of having done all that I did. I’m deeply grateful for all the people who have made me this gift of an exciting, interesting & fruitful year!
May 2022 be a healthy and fulfilling one for all.
—Ema Naito, The Clarity Editor
☘ Editing
Isn’t it great that we’re all so different? Some people hate editing, whereas I enjoy it so much!
Thank you for entrusting me with your written words. Your confidence and our relationship mean the world to me.
I am proud to serve my regular/repeat clients (new clients marked with *).
International development
UNITAR Division for Prosperity. Love my colleagues! Am finding my passion for spreading plain language.
SIAP SIAGA project (with Palladium)*
Academia
Energy Studies Institute, National University of Singapore. Three new reports for the final year of the nuclear governance project.
TASC Platform, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies
VoxEU.org and Centre for Economic Policy Research. Three years and counting 🙂 Got to copy edit a World Bank & CEPR ebook on international trade.
Private sector
Athru Communications.* Review their client’s website through an inclusion lens.
J-CLINIC. Applying plain language in healthcare-related website.
X-ZELL. Applying plain(er) language on medtech company website (disclosure: husband’s company).
I also appreciate very much the one-time clients that come my way through word of mouth or platforms like Lancers.
☘ Writing
It’s incredibly humbling to get on the other side and be the writer! I enjoy the challenge, though, and appreciate more than ever the power of thoughtful and kind feedback.
UNITAR Division for Prosperity
New challenges year: Interviewing people and writing web articles that tell their stories.
Most proud of: Getting Prosperity to include brief summaries at the top of its web articles. I hope it helps more people access the content.
Chartered Institute for Editing and Proofreading (CIEP)
First ever: I got professionally copyedited. The invisible copyeditor tightened my writing and I couldn’t even tell what they had done. It was my voice but better!
[CIEP2021 Report] Authenticity reading: Helping writers craft accurate and respectful representation
Families in Global Transition (FIGT)
Learned about: Diversity & accessibility—not because FIGT knows all about it but because my colleagues are also exploring.
Third Culture Kids & Parachute Kids: Building Their Resilience (12 June 2021)
[FIGT2021 REPORT] Hidden Struggles of Multilingual Students (3 May 2021)
[FIGT2021 Report] Language, Family and Identity: Parents Share Their Bilingual Education Journeys (11 April 2021)
☘ Learning and professional development
As with 2020 (and perhaps even more so), the school closures for much of the year kept my mental load to the max with managing the kids’ online schooling while eking out work time. Doing formal online courses amidst that was impossible, so I looked for more time-flexible ways to learn and develop.
☑ Conferences
Conferences are boring? Not these ones! I met amazing colleagues and came out energized and with new ideas and skills.
Access for All: Clear Language Is a Civil Right, organized by the Clarity, Center for Plain Language, and Plain Language Association International
Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) 2021. A personal highlight was giving a lightning talk about the power of English language editors (thanks to Ben Dare who summed them up beautifully). I am also proud that introvert-me attended networking sessions and enjoyed those too (some tidbits I collected). You can read more about the conference sessions on the CIEP blog.
Clear Writing for Europe 2021, organized by the European Commission. In a networking session, I met some United Nations colleagues in Geneva and New York, and we’ve started an informal community of practice that I hope will help us spread more clear language in the international organizations.
Families in Global Transition 2021: Embracing and Bridging Differences
☑ Editing-related training
This year, I didn’t have the mind space to enroll in formal courses but here are three that I did complete.
“Editing with the Chicago Manual of Style” course: I finally completed the course, which I started in 2020! With the Editorial Freelancers Association.
Mini-courses with Hilary Cadman: Hilary generously ran free mini-courses this year on screencasting and on creating online training courses. Both were great.
☑ Reading
Apart from formal trainings, I learn so much from books, blogs, articles, social media posts, etc. (and the occasional podcast).
Major topics
- plain language
- inclusive language
- web accessibility
- basics of design
- effective social media
- copyediting
- non-fiction writing and revising
Among the books I read, here are my favorites!
On editing
- Amy Einsohn and Marilyn Schwartz. The Copyeditor’s Handbook and The Copyeditor’s Workbook. 2019. Still working on these 🙂
On plain language
- Rebecca Gowers and Ernest Gowers. Plain Words. 2014. A classic, updated.
- Edmond H. Weiss. The Elements of International English Style. 2005. So thoughtful (my review).
- Luke Finley, Laura Ripper and Sarah Carr. Editing into Plain English. 2020. Great guide from CIEP.
On design
- Robin Williams. The Non-designer’s Design Book. 2015. I love this book (my review).
- Petra Černe Oven and Cvetka Požar, eds. On Information Design. 2016. An excellent introduction to what information design is and how it helps effective communication. Includes a chapter by Rob Waller, “Transformational Information Design.”
On presenting
- Jonathan Schwabisch. Better Presentations. 2016. Top-notch advice on making powerful presentation slides.
- Harvard Business Review’s 10 Must Reads on Public Speaking and Presenting. 2020.
Plus my favorite fun read: The Weight of Ink, by Rachel Kadish.
☘ Hopes for 2022
The top three things I hope to do in 2022
That’s a wrap! May 2022 be a healthy and fulfilling one for you and yours. I look forward to being of service to you again 🙂
If you would like to discuss whether we might be a good fit for your writing project, please send me details via the contact form or email me at info@theclarityeditor.com.
Cover image by David Mark from Pixabay
