Timothy P
Old Reynella, Australia
“Clarity – concision – correctness.”
Specialist subjects:
Education:
I must admit, the sheer logic of the IEEE system appeals to this old programmer.
Favorite referencing style
Although my early career direction was in IT, I was always something of a writer at heart, having been a voracious reader in high school. My creative side culminated in a large hobby-related website for which I had written hundreds of pages of content. Around this time, I realized I had an eye for spotting errors. I find great satisfaction and enjoyment in turning writing riddled with flaws into polished gems. Part of the satisfaction is knowing how the client will appreciate the result.
Why I became an editor
My online business involved the production of a large volume of text. This content was drafted before being edited and published. As time went on, large sections of the site ended up being rewritten several times for various reasons. Besides live pages, there was a long-running monthly newsletter and a blog page, which was updated once or twice per week.
At this writing, I am doing one final pass over the entire 13-year-old site. It's being given the "Becoming A Proofreader" treatment!
Background and experience
I love both the incremental process of playing whack-a-mole with mechanical errors and also experiencing the polished feel (like a print publication) that results when the clean copy is ready to return. If the exercises in the "Becoming A Proofreader" course are any indication, proofreading will also prove to be an interesting and broadening experience.
Why I love proofreading and editing
Going way, way back, it's probably a science fiction tome by Asimov – with the title now obscured by the mists of time.
Favorite book:
Going way, way back, it's probably a science fiction tome by Asimov – with the title now obscured by the mists of time.
Hobbies:
Playing the bots at Chess.com. One day, I might play a human to see what they're like. I occasionally pop out to do a spot of kite aerial photography as well.
Editing tips:
I do a quick mechanical pass first to catch the obvious errors. Then I do a grammatical pass, looking at correctness and concision. After a break, I go carefully through in search of anything I missed.
