Latest work (2022 January-April)

The first four months of 2022 passed in a blur for me but here are some highlights.

Editing

I’m doing the usual copyediting for my regular clients (UNITAR and VoxEU.org) and others. I was happy to get a word-of-mouth referral too, to start off the year.

So far for two ESI reports, I’ve edited 76,266 words and 798 footnotes 💪

My biggest job right now is finishing three reports for the Energy Studies Institute, National University of Singapore. I can say that I’ve spent enough time with EndNote to last me a few months, if not years! 😆 The project is ending and the three authors and I are in the final crunch.

Another brief but interesting job was to review a corporate website for usability and inclusion. It was fun to give general feedback without the responsibility of actually making the changes 🙂

Training

It’s taking some time but I’m creating e-learning lessons on clear writing for UNITAR training programs. I hope to finally complete these lessons in the next 4 months.

The Families in Global Transition online conference was in March. I ran a brief orientation for presenters and hosted a 30-minute “kitchen table conversation”—casual conversations—around communicating effectively with diverse audiences. Hosting took me out of my comfort zone but I’m proud to have done it and enjoyed hearing everyone’s experiences.

Upgrading my skills

I’m about to finish the excellent Plain English for Editors course with the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP). Working through this course made me recognize that my editing may not be drastic enough to qualify as plain language editing 🙂

As someone who thinks and writes a lot about plain language as a tool to give greater access to all kinds of people, I’ve been reading about language privilege, accessible publishing, and design for readability (for example, here’s my non-designer attempt at visually presenting information so its meaning is clearer). There’s still much to learn.

A milestone

Aaannnddd … a big milestone: I was interviewed on the Tandem Nomads podcast! I’ve been a fan of the podcast since becoming a solopreneur (plus, speaking outside of rehearsed presentations terrifies me), so this was a momentous occasion. So grateful for the opportunity!

What’s next

Apart from my main work of editing 😁 I have several blogs in the works and lots more reading and learning I want to do. Let’s hope that schools stay open so I can focus on it all. Stay well!

Photo by Ema Naito. It’s approaching summer in Thailand!