Writing planning

This service helps organisations plan their document or web content before they start researching and writing. Planning involves identifying your audience, understanding what your audience needs, clarifying why you want to communicate to the audience and what you want your audience to do, learn or remember after reading your material. Writing planning will save you time and money, and reduce the stress of multiple rewrites that can result from documents that don’t have a clear purpose.

I can provide this service through writing planning workshops (physically and virtually), which are especially useful when a group need to reach consensus on the writing plan.

Writing

This service includes writing all or parts of a document. The service is tailored to what your organisation needs, which can be repurposing existing material you already have, or researching and writing new content. Using my professional writing service will give your organisations a well-planned and high-quality first draft in much less time than it would take you to develop.

Sometimes structural editing reveals a document is missing essential content to achieve its purpose. I can work with you to help fill these gaps. I also help organisations identify what type of information they will need before they start researching and developing their writing. Each project is different: contact me to discuss your specific requirements.

This service looks at the structure, content and style of a draft document. I give objective, professional feedback and suggestions on how to improve these aspects of the document so it will achieve its purpose and will be easy for the audience to read. Your organisation can apply the suggestions itself, or may choose to commission my structural editing service to do this work for you.

Editing

This service includes reviewing and improving how documents are written and presented. It can take place at any stage during the writing process. Editing will provide your organisations with assurance that its documents will achieve their purpose, suit their audience and are free of errors.

Structural editing

My structural editing service typically reviews documents at an early-draft stage. I check that a document makes good logical sense and achieves its purpose. The service makes changes and suggestions that:

• ensure content is consistent with the purpose and objectives of the document
• ensure content is logically organised
• ensure headings and subheadings help the reader navigate the document
• address repetition or gaps
• ensure content meets a given set of requirements, such as a template or criteria for a funding proposal
• present information in ways that are easier to understand, such as converting text to tables or diagrams.

Copyediting

My copyediting service typically reviews documents at a final-draft stage.  I make changes that ensure:

• sentences and paragraphs are clear
• writing style and tone are consistent and suits the audience
• content is suitable for the intended purpose and audience
• style choices are consistently applied
• figures, tables and captions are accurate and consistent
• facts and quotations are correct and referenced
• grammar, spelling and punctuation are correct.

Quality assurance

This service reviews a document or web content before it is finalised, submitted or published. The review looks at how readable the document will be for the intended audience, and how well it aligns with its purpose, objectives and other requirements, such as a template or criteria for a funding proposal. Quality assurance is an objective assessment from the viewpoint of the reader.

My quality-assurance service will provide your organisations with feedback on ways to improve the document; it can also extend to editing or re-writing.

Writing training and coaching

These services help people improve their confidence and skills to write well at work. Having skilled writers in the workplace saves organisations time spent rewriting poorly written drafts, which can be disempowering for staff.

Writing training and coaching are bespoke services that are tailored to the needs of the organisation or individual. Training and coaching materials draw on the organisation’s actual documents and use examples that are relevant to its line of business.

Training and coaching generally cover the following topics, which are the most effective ways to improve writing quickly and easily: planning writing, using plain English, using active voice, avoiding nominalisations, writing succinctly, getting the right tone, writing consistently, using a style guide, and editing and proofreading.

Extras

Style sheets

When we agree to a writing and editing project, it includes developing a style sheet. This is a list of style preferences that are used in the document or web content. The style sheet draws from your organisation’s own style guide (if you have one) and is a useful tool that your organisation or team can continue to develop and use after the project.

Formatting

Each writing and editing project can include formatting, if your organisation is not using a designer. Formatting includes consistently applying an agreed set styles to every aspect of a document (headings, paragraphs, tables, captions, references and so on) in MS Word. This service can extend to basic layout of a document in Adobe InDesign, which creates a more professional finish than MS Word.