Elisabeth Dahl

elisabeth@jhu.edu

Baltimore, Maryland

and everywhere via the Web

Do you sometimes feel unsettled after you've written something, suspecting that errors and inconsistencies remain but worrying that you've lost the ability to see them? It's hard to bring a clear eye to a document you've read through a hundred times, have worked on for three years, or have shared with many collaborators. You need an editor's help. Everyone does sometimes.

Copyediting is like housecleaning: it doesn't change the house in any major way, it just readies the place for company. Readers are, in a sense, your guests. As a hospitable author, you want to provide them with a document that is clear and consistent, with no typos or grammatical errors to interfere with their enjoyment and understanding of your work.

You may want an exhaustive spring cleaning, complete with curtain laundering and rug thumping (a full copyedit), or you may want just a basic tidying up, to fluff the sofa pillows and make the fixtures gleam (a light copyedit). Or maybe you're not sure what you want. Whatever your editorial housekeeping needs, I'd be pleased to discuss your project, answer any questions, quote my rates (which begin at $25/hour for a light copyedit), and edit a few pages of your document at no charge, as a sample.

The copyediting process today involves a simple exchange of electronic files: you e-mail me a Word file as an attachment, I edit the file using the revision tracking tool, and I e-mail the file back to you as an attachment. You'll be able to see everything I've done clearly, because the revision tracking tool will have marked my edits in a different color. To see a sample paragraph edited this way, please click here.

As a copyeditor, I correct errors, streamline prose, make consistent style decisions, and ask questions. While I respect the rules of grammar and the principles of good writing, I'm flexible and adapt my editing to suit each project. The goal is to make your document, whatever it is, the best that it can be. And the final call is always yours. It's your house, after all.

I've worked as a copyeditor and writer for 17 years, have degrees in English from Johns Hopkins and Georgetown, and have written articles for the Editorial Eye, a publishing industry newsletter. Feel free to check out my résumé and sample project list. References are available upon request: just e-mail me at elisabeth@jhu.edu.

I am also a freelance writer and would be happy to discuss possible writing or rewriting projects.