Wanting best-quality proofreading for your business, story
writing, university work, CV, letters?
Expert
academic mentoring,
proofreading and editing
offered by experienced
author/researcher/reviewer
Learn how to write better!
See immediate results!
Well-known
British writer Chris Brand, once an Oxford don, offers highest-quality
proofreading and kindred services for all prose work. He will quickly and
substantially improve your application, article, book,
business plan, correspondence, CV, dissertation, essay, letter, manual, memo,
newsletter, novel, paper, presentation, press release, publicity material,
research proposal, research report, story, submission or thesis. Just e-mail
500 words of your writing (in English) to proof_reading2004@yahoo.co.uk (no
attachments, please); or snailmail to Natalia, 71 South Clerk Street (1F2), Edinburgh
EH8 9PP. Chris Brand will offer FREE comments and
improvements. If you like his suggestions, you can buy more. Service normally
within three days of acknowledged receipt of your document – or faster for
‘rush’ jobs by negotiation.
2005 charges:
Proofreading
(A) £UKP12-00 [approximately $US23-00] per 1,000 words. FREE 1,000
words proofreading each time you introduce a friend or colleague who becomes a
substantial paying user. Payments: 20% in advance, 40% at half-way stage, and
40% on completion.
OR
(B) Student pays a self-chosen
sum and Chris Brand will undertake as much proofreading work as possible, at
£12-00 per hour, for that sum. On seeing the result, the student can purchase
more proofreading time if desired. Payment: in advance. DISCOUNT £20 when
you introduce a substantial paying user.
A
discount of 10% on the above rates will be offered after the first 20,000 words.
Tuition/supervision/mentoring
services for psychological, philosophical, political and historical topics a
speciality -- £20 per hour.
Translation
from French, German and Mandarin Chinese into English is also offered – £15 per
hour.
Chris Brand [M.A. (Oxon.)] was
for many years a lecturer at Edinburgh University. He has often published
invited reviews in Nature, Times Higher Educational Supplement,
Personality & Individual Differences, Behaviour Research &
Therapy, Financial Times (Sweden), Heredity, Occidental
Quarterly (U.S.A.) and The Sprout (EEC – Brussels) and
broadcast for BBC radio. He was for twelve years an Editorial Consultant for
the European Journal of Personality and is a Fellow of the Galton
Institute [London].
Telephone inquiries: first to (44) (0) (131) 662 8039 or, if that
fails, to (44) (0) (131) 667 5394.
Remember:
However good your message, defects in spelling, idiom, style, logic, organization,
humour and persuasiveness can cost you credibility and weaken your impact.
Guidance notes to
clients from Chris Brand about his proofreading conventions
On receiving your e-mail document for
proofreading, I will first copy it and paste it below the original. This is so
you can easily check the changes that I make or suggest. I will then go to work
in the top document (T1), leaving your original (T2) beneath.
I will make any simple and
unproblematic improvements directly to your T1 text.
If I am not entirely sure about a
proposed change and want you to check especially that you are happy with it, I
will put my proposed substitution in square brackets [ ]. To suggest omission, I will replace
a word with [xxxx] or a longer passage with [xxxxxx].
If I am frankly rather uncertain
about what you mean or about my proposed alteration, I will use curly brackets
{ } around my tentative suggestion. I will suggest alternatives (a,b,c) for
selection by using { a / b / c}.
Where I have deleted a word or passage
as apparently unnecessary, I will leave the marker ‘xxxxxx’ so you can check
you are happy.
{EX}…….{EX} will be used to demarcate
a passage which I feel you might usefully expand, explain more or
give an example to clarify what you mean.
{M?}……..{M?} = I cannot understand
the meaning of intervening material and need you to clarify it before I
can attempt further improvement.
{EV}…….{EV} = It seems you are coming
to a premature evaluation or conclusion which is best kept for later –
after evidence, argument or other authority have been provided.
Fuller comments or queries from me
will appear in double curly brackets {{
}}.
ADVICE
Unless your English is of an exceptionally
high standard, do not attempt to write sentences of more than 30 words (3 lines
of normal handwriting or typescript).
Remember that English always ‘maintains the
subject.’ Everything is spelled out, even at the risk of repetition. This is
how English has probably become the world language – unless the Chinese can
make an enormous breakthrough (unlikely with ideographic rather than alphabetic
script). (Mandarin is not a language with a grammar. – It has no reliable
tenses, genders, or even the singular-plural distinction. It is rather a set of
amusing and aspirationally beautiful notes exchanged between intelligent people
who have a similar background and situation. By contrast, the Western tradition
is to make one’s speech and writing clear and accessible to all –
including complete strangers and people unfamiliar with the topic being
discussed. So DON’T write in English: ‘Jane got a smile from Tom and could
sense Sarah’s jealousy. She wondered what would happen next.’ DO write: ‘Jane got
a smile from Tom and could sense Sarah’s jealousy. Sarah/Jane{{YOU
SPECIFY}} wondered what would happen next.’ (Normally, in English, ‘he’, ‘she’
and ‘it’ refer to the last-named subject, yet the last-named person in a
sentence can distract. If it’s not clear, you should always renew
the proper noun.) Remember: English goes for clarity (and even repetition), more
than for cleverness and artistry.
Remember that the English tradition is
always to provide evidence (and jokes and examples) to back up arguments. Do
not try to rely on reasoning alone (the French way) or quotation/citation of
authority (the German way) or on making a suggestive word-painting (the Chinese
way). To succeed in English, the rule is to give BACKROUND/PROBLEM, POSSIBLE
SOLUTIONS, LOTS OF JOKES, APPARENTLY RELEVANT STUDIES, CRITICAL EVIDENCE and
CRUSHING CONCLUSION.
Each of your chapters should have an
interesting summary and conclusion which you could state in one sentence at a
party – e.g. ‘Napoleon had many girls, but the one he loved best was the
teenager, Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria.’ You
needn’t necessarily give these mini-conclusions -- they may be perfectly obvious from what you have written;
but they should exist in your own mind.
Again, your whole thesis
should ideally have an interesting -- indeed arresting – summary of some 150-200
words. E.g.: ‘British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston (P.M. 1855-1865) annoyed
Queen Victoria with his vigorous sexual pursuits (e.g. under the Queen’s nose
at Windsor Castle with one of her maids – whose bedroom he had mistaken for
that of his own mistress) and was dubbed ‘Lord Cupid’ in the British press. Yet
his lifelong relationship was with his Emily, beginning 1909, by whom he had three
children and a wonderful social and (as far as we know) sex life. Palmerston
was a liberal who opposed the slave trade and favoured toleration of divorce;
yet he himself lived largely within his own strict principles, funding his own
Irish farmers with coffee and whisky as they took off for America, always encouraging
intelligence and education, and enjoying such a good relationship with his wife
that she defended him publicly against (quite impressive) adultery allegations
when he was aged 80. Palmerston was the first national liberal – a man of
spirit for himself and his country and the world.’
No guarantee is offered in
the above advertisement except of fair work for payment as indicated. Terms and
conditions may be modified at any time.
Document last modified: 5 i 2005