Spotlight on Marketing

I saw this sentence in a tweet: “Constant consumption of negative media stories can have a deleterious effect on our health.” My translation, in plain English: Constantly reading or watching negative media stories can be bad for your health. I explain why I made those changes, and offer more before-and-after examples of how I edit clunky text.

The client probably doesn’t know what editing and proofreading are, how long those tasks take, or what they’re worth. That’s not their fault. It’s your job, as an editor/proofreader, to educate them.

Have you decided to commission a freelance writer/editor to write or edit a document for your company or organisation? Here are some questions that she’ll need to ask you before she can give you a realistic quote, accept the assignment and start the work

A while ago I was asked to fix the grammar and spelling of the text of a website. Sure, I could have done that, but I chose not to because it wouldn’t have magically fixed the fact that it was just plain bad writing. So what makes a piece of writing “good”? And how does an editor fix a piece of bad writing?

I just spotted a horrible, cringe-inducing phrase on the website of a professional service provider.

A potential client recently contacted me, asking me to edit her monthly e-newsletter. She proposed that because she has no budget for marketing, she’d pay me for my services by referring others to me. I say pay me AND offer referrals.

I share three examples of what I consider to be poorly written copy I’ve seen recently; diagnose what’s wrong with it, and show you how I’d transform it into compelling copy that attracts attention and gets results.