This past June, I launched a new digital tool for academic writers — my preferred clients — at writingwellishard.com. This tool enables academics to compare features of their own writing with the features of a writing sample of their choice. For instance, users could see whether they write sentences that …
For this year’s Claudette Upton Scholarship, my fellow judges — Lenore Hietkamp and David Johansen — and I selected as our question for nominees’ reflection, “How might kindness be part of the editor’s career?” We chose this question for a number of reasons: our own current thinking about our business …
Editors work in quiet confidence: our job is to help writers to speak with clarity, accuracy and sometimes even flair. In so doing, our own voices are silent, and our perspectives unheard. The best copy edits are the ones a reader can’t see. Because of the editor’s invisibility, I’ve had …
Over a year into the COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying labour market turmoil, Editors BC brought together students and experienced editors for an informal evening of conversation and relationship-building. The Zoom get-together was described by participants as a “valuable and inspiring event” that gave student editors “some clear ideas for …
I’ve never been happy with the look of my website, shortishard.ca. Yet, I’ve never needed to update it, because I get all my work through referrals, word of mouth or my monthly column, Ask Dr Editor. In 2021, though, things are going to change: I’m hiring an undergraduate student to …
As a former in-house grants facilitator in a small health sciences department, and now as a freelance academic editor, I see a lot of the same issues recurring in applications for academic research funding. If I only had an hour or two to review a grant, these are the top …
“Everything’s happening at once,” laughs Margo LaPierre, the winner of the 2018 Claudette Upton Scholarship. She’s chatting with me while her husband refuels their car, three-quarters of the way through their 15-hour drive back home to Ottawa after the 2019 Editors Canada Conference in Halifax. A week before finding out the …
A little over two years ago, Lori Burwash sang the praises of Twitter as “a forum where communication must be clear, engaging and concise” — and so of obvious appeal to editors. Since June 2016, Twitter has grown in the public consciousness, with some now seeing it as an echo …
Letitia Henville of Vancouver, B.C., is the recipient of the Editors Canada 2017 Claudette Upton Scholarship,* which recognizes promising emerging editors. The “promising” part of the description definitely applies to Letitia. The “emerging” part, not so much: she has hit the ground running. Like many editors, Letitia entered the profession …