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Author Archives: Liz Dexter

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About Liz Dexter

Book blog is at http://www.librofulltime.wordpress.com Writer, proofreader, editor, transcriber. Also runner, gym-goer, volunteer and BookCrosser! My married name is Liz Dexter but my maiden name and the name on the books I write is Liz Broomfield.

5 top tips for working from home

27 Apr

This month’s guest post is from Annabelle Beckwith of Yara Consulting and Coach Me Confident. I met Anna on our very first day at University (ahem) years ago, and we’ve been friends ever since. Anna was always the dynamic, arty one, full of ideas and enthusiasm, whereas I was more of a plodder. I don’t think either of us would have thought that, (ahem) years on, we’d both be running our very different businesses! Anna’s company Yara offers innovative and exciting training methods that really work – she’s been doing it longer than me, and working full-time from home, so many of us could benefit from her tips for making a home office work well and smoothly. Over to you, Anna …

Working From Home – 5 top tips

Several years ago, I worked from a rather expensive city centre office, in the mistaken belief that it would impress my clients. Sitting on the crowded commuter train one morning, it occurred to me that working from home would be a far more sensible option, cutting down massively on costs and travel and, well … just making an awful lot more sense.

Working from home, of course, has massive advantages – the flexibility and the comfort factor among them. It does, though need a different mindset. Here are my top 5 tips for anyone thinking of working from home:

1. Get organised!

If, like me, you’re not the world’s tidiest person, you will need to exert some self discipline to keep your work in order. This will range from organising your work space (so you don’t scatter things around the house and end up losing half of it), to ensuring that you have some sort of filing system, to making sure that you keep track of your finances.

It might seem like a bit of a faff to spend time at the beginning setting up a few systems, but believe me, it will be time well invested, and you’ll feel the benefit of it later on!

2. Set your goals

Two big areas for me at the start of my working-from-home career were goal setting and prioritising. The freedom of working from home can be such that it’s easy to end up running round like a headless chicken, doing lots of ‘stuff’ but not actually achieving anything.

Make sure you have clear goals about what you want to achieve, and devise a plan or schedule that will enable you to keep track of it all, and get the work done.

3. Learn to prioritise

Prioritisation is another key area for the home-worker: with no-one else telling you what to do, it’s important that you prioritise the right tasks. Avoid the temptation to do the things you like doing, or can get out of the way quickly and prioritise on the basis of how urgent and/or important something is (Steven Covey). Brian Tracy’s book ‘Eat That Frog’ is a good one on this subject.

4. Find your balance

When I first started working from home, people would say to me, “how do you deal with all the distractions?” as if the lure of daytime TV or endless cups of tea might overwhelm the necessity to actually do some work.

I’m sure that most home-workers will find that the reverse is true: it can actually be difficult to switch off. I often find myself writing blogs or e-mails later in the evening, when my kids are asking me to spend time with them.

Don’t lose sight of the reason for actually working from home in the first place (in my case, to be able to spend more time with my kids). Make sure you strike a healthy balance.

5. Join a network

One of the drawbacks of working from home – particularly if you’re working full time – is that you don’t have the advantage of being able to socialise with colleagues. Join some networks – online ones like LinkedIn are great, but find some that have local meetings and will enable you to make some new contacts and meet other people in the same boat.

Who knows – it may even lead to more business!

If you’ve enjoyed this guest post, you can find more like it, including a great recent series on goal-setting, on the Yara blog.

 
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Posted by on April 27, 2011 in Blogging, Business, Guest posts, Organisation

 

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On the humble apostrophe

20 Apr

I wasn’t sure I was going to write anything on the apostrophe, as it seems such a basic thing that people like me who work with words tend to go on about (we don’t really roam the streets, Sharpie in hand, looking for hapless greengrocers … )

But then I noticed more and more confusions, and a friend or two mentioned that they still weren’t sure, so: the humble apostrophe.

Turning to the dictionary, an apostrophe is “an exclamatory passage in a speech or poem addressed to a person or personified thing.” Oh – not the one we want. OK, it’s “a punctuation mark (‘) used to indicate either possession or the omission of letters or numbers.” That’s better.

Let’s move on to Hart’s Rules, which, oddly enough, contains the rules of English. The following information is summarised from Hart’s. Please do pay attention to all but the ones I mark as terribly hard – they are the ones where you need to know there’s something funny about them and you’ll need to look them up. That’s what we all do, just to check …

The apostrophe is used in two ways – to show possession (ownership) and to mark where letters or numbers have been missed out.

Possession
Easy …
– Use an apostrophe and an s with a normal single noun or indefinite pronoun to show possession – the girl’s job, the box’s contents, anyone’s guess.
A bit harder …
– Use the apostrophe and s combination for plural nouns that don’t end in s – people’s opinions, children’s toys.
– Do NOT use an apostrophe in the possessive pronouns: hers, its, ours, yours, theirs – theirs is the kingdom of heaven, a friend of yours, give the dog its dinner (it’s easier to remember the “its” rule if you think of it belonging to this section).
A bit harder still …
– Use the apostrophe alone (no s after it) after plural nouns that DO end in s – our neighbours’ gardens, other countries’ borders.
– In compound and “of” phrases, the apostrophe (and the plural, in fact) go after the last noun – my sister-in-law’s son, the King of Spain’s estates.
– Use an apostrophe and s with personal names ending with an s, x, or z sound – Charles’s, Dickens’s, Marx’s and Jesus’s.
Ever so hard (to be honest I sometimes have to look these up and I don’t often see them used correctly) …
– Use an apostrophe and no s when talking about time passing – in a few days’ time, a few weeks’ holiday. But if it’s in the name of a war, no apostrophe – The Hundred Years War.
– A double possessive (making use of both “of” and an apostrophe) may be used with nouns related to living beings or personal names – a speech of Churchill OR a speech of Churchill’s. But it’s not used with nouns referring to organisations, etc. – a friend of the National Gallery.
– A double set of nouns – apostrophe and s go after them if they are acting together – Broomfield and Dexter’s “The Rules of Grammar” – but not if they’re separate – Shakespeare’s and Jonson’s tragedies.
– Apostrophe and no s for a singular noun that ends in an s or z sound combined with “sake” – for goodness’ sake, for old times’ sake (times here is a plural so has the apostrophe after the s). This is the one I have to look up. Maybe you should save this blog post for those purposes.
Believe me, there are more obscure rules, for example those dealing with Greek names. If you need to know, ask me!

Plurals
Just – don’t. If you really, really need to differentiate, you are just about allowed a small, occasional one, only in examples like – dot the i’s and cross the t’s, find all the number 5’s. But that’s it. And there’s not one with numbers any more, although this has changed in the last decade or so: the 1980s not the 1980’s.

Contractions/omissions
Easy …
Use an apostrophe when a letter or number has been missed out: won’t, we’ll, bo’sun, ’70s, it’s warm out today.
A bit harder …
Don’t use an apostrophe before a word that’s been shortened but is now in general use – flu, cello and phone, not ‘flu, ‘cello and ‘phone.
If the apostrophe replaces the beginning or end of a word, it has a space before/after it to make the word stay separate – rock ‘n’ roll. If the apostrophe replaces a letter in the middle of the word, no space – ma’am, o’er.
Madly hard to remember …
An apostrophe is used before the suffix when an abbreviation functions as a verb – KO’d, OD’ing.

References
Concise Oxford English dictionary (11th rev. ed.) Oxford: OUP, 2008.
New Hart’s Rules Oxford: OUP, 2005.

 
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Posted by on April 20, 2011 in Errors, Language use, Punctuation, Reference materials, Writing

 

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Helping out at the Social Media Surgery

13 Apr

I usually post about words and editing-related things, but this time I wanted to share a great experience I had the other week. I was aware of the Birmingham Social Media Surgery but didn’t really know what it was and how it worked. Last Wednesday, I saw a few tweets asking for volunteers to help. But I didn’t really know what the parameters were and what constituted an “expert” who could help other people learn about using social media. So I waited until I was in town late that afternoon, and popped along to the Orange Studios on Cannon Street (Birmingham), which is where they are always held.

I met the organisers and explained I was there to help; they took my details and said they’d match me up with a visitor so I could start helping. They even lent me a laptop for the occasion (this was a Mac, which caused me some consternation and could have been embarrassing – “Yes, I know all about the internet; unfortunately I’m unable to use a computer!”) By this time, I’d gathered that the point of a Social Media Surgery is that people who know about social media and how to use it help people involved with community and charitable organisations to learn about blogging, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

I was paired up with a chap who’d come in just after me. We sat down and I found out his background (he helped community organisations promote themselves and their events), established where he was so far, then chatted about how he could use social media more effectively. For example, I showed him how to link his LinkedIn account to Twitter, we chatted about the (lack of) etiquette for posting on Twitter, and I think possibly the most useful thing – the fact that, in this world of New Media and Social Media, if you see someone doing something you think is good, they usually don’t mind if you contact them and ask them how they did it! As I’ve worked for a New Deal For Communities project in the past, and have organised and promoted events, using social media, hopefully I had some background knowledge which would help.

I’ve enjoyed sharing my experiences and giving advice at Birmingham Social Media Cafe before now, but that’s more for other entrepreneurs. This is real grass-roots stuff, helping groups who may be digitally disadvantaged grasp the opportunities some of us take for granted or have been fortunate enough to have the time, education and resources to work out for ourselves. I came away feeling great about having been able to share some of my knowledge and help someone who can help people perhaps less fortunate, but definitely less digitally-literate, than myself. I didn’t set myself up as an “expert” but the team there were supportive and friendly.

I’d recommend any entrepreneurs and small business owners out there to “give something back” in this kind of way. It’s so rewarding, relationships can be forged which may well be beneficial to both parties, and I hope I’ll be back every month!

 
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Posted by on April 13, 2011 in Business, New skills

 

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March and April

06 Apr

So, it’s time for a new “What I’ve been up to” post, since my readers seem to like those, and that covers the “March” bit of my title, but I also want to look forwards into the new financial year and say thank you to my clients for the past financial year. That’s the April bit.

First of all, what I did in March …
– Continued working on my Taiwanese client’s essays – the English is really improving in these; I’m proud of both of us for that
– Continued working for my US agency client on their client’s web pages and publications
– Finished writing the content for the two websites I’ve been working on for a while
– Continued working for my translator client, including a wide range of interesting topics
– Transcribed an interview for my ongoing journalist client and read a couple of articles she’s created out of interviews I’ve transcribed (which I find *fascinating*)
– Worked on my physiotherapist client’s blog posts, including tidying up the posts themselves, adding categories to those that didn’t have them and creating a set of tags for the posts and applying those to them too, copyedited her website and turned two e-books into one
– Did a transcription of a radio show about music for a previous PhD client who’s now working on a new project
– Copyedited several third year and Master’s dissertations on economics, one on art, and one on sports science
– Copyedited a chapter of a thesis on international law

Now, here’s the April bit. It’s the start of a new tax year, and also my new financial year. I’ve run my accounts for the year and am pleased with and proud of what I’ve achieved this year. And, while obviously I’m grateful to Matthew for his support (including technical support); and my friends for their understanding as I guiltily check the Blackberry while I’m out and about with them, or dash home to finish a project; and my copyediting and small business peers for their help and advice, I want to say a big thank you to my clients.

Dear Libro clients: Thank you for taking me on in the first place, either because you’ve seen my adverts or I’ve tweeted to you or however else you found me. Thank you for trusting the person who recommended me and approaching me. Thank you for responding to my questions quickly, for making decisions if I’ve needed you to make them, and for keeping me informed of your plans and when you’re going to send me things. Thank you for understanding that I do need to work around my day job (and eat and sleep occasionally!). Thank you for your kind comments, your references for my website or on LinkedIn or Facebook. Thank you for either coming back to me for more work, recommending me to your friends and colleagues, or both! I really enjoy the work I do, I love learning about all the different things you all write about, I love creating new text for you or helping you hone what you’ve created yourselves.

Here’s to a happy, busy and successful 2011-2012 for all of us!

 
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Posted by on April 6, 2011 in Business, Celebration, Jobs, Organisation, What Do I Do?, Writing

 

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A new poll

03 Apr

I’ve added a poll to find out which kinds of post you prefer. Please do fill in the poll

What are your favourite posts on this blog?
(polls)

and comment on this post if you have any particular topic you’d like to see me cover.

 
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Posted by on April 3, 2011 in Blogging

 

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On a different type of language

30 Mar

Time for another guest post, this time from Gary Jones. I met Gary through my hobby of BookCrossing and have done some copyediting work for him to complement his web development skills. I really like this beautiful meditation on a very different kind of language from that usually discussed on here.

Here’s what Gary sent me when I asked for a biography – I can’t put it better myself, so I won’t!

Gary Jones is a freelance web developer from Basingstoke with a keen interest in anything to do with the web. He specialises in WordPress sites using the Genesis theme framework. You can follow Gary on Twitter.

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I write code for a living. It could be in one of many languages, but all require careful checking as one misplaced or missing character could cause a fatal error and kill a website completely. Debugging code can be fun, or it can take hours to find where one single comma or semi colon is missing. There are many types of error within code, but pretty much all of them can come down to one thing – human error.

Code can have a beauty of its own. Whereas an author might weave a lavish scene with in-depth explanations of intricate details, the most impressive code is often the smallest fragment that does most of the work; one line of code that culminates from the conditional logic, foreach and while loops, switch statements and concatenations that kick-starts the application into life.

Encapsulations, polymorphism and synchronicity await those who dare to delve a little deeper. Code patterns, gradual degradation, progressive enhancements, refactorisations, even the terms related to code are elegant, and that’s just what good code should be – elegant, accurate and concise.

 
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Posted by on March 30, 2011 in Guest posts, Language use, Writing

 

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Why bother? The value of proofreading

23 Mar

A while ago, I asked people what they’d like to see me writing about. One that came up there, and has come up since, and before, and whenever I mention I’m a proofreader/copyeditor, is … “why bother?” Why can’t people just express themselves however they want, with whatever spelling, grammar and punctuation they fancy?

I have to state my own view here; that’s all I can do. And furnish some examples, many drawn from a discussion I had with peers in the copyediting business, on a forum to which I belong. I fall in between the prescriptive and descriptive camps when it comes to spellings, grammar, etc. and their (inevitable) changes. I glory in new words and word-formations (I’ve been slightly obsessed with the -gate suffix for more years than I care to recall) and I find it fascinating to see how language changes with time. I don’t think it should be fixed, nailed down and not allowed to change. But I still care deeply about clarity and precision of expression. And, in my opinion, if you don’t know the rules and how to apply them, if you don’t *care* about the rules and how to apply them, then the clarity of what you’re expressing can easily be lost, and your meaning may not come across as you intend it to.

Please note, I am not criticising those who don’t know the rules, or have difficulty applying them. How could I, when my own clients include people whose English is not their first (or second, or third) language, dyslexic people, people who’ve not been taught at school or college how the rules work. I like a laugh at a dodgy shop sign as much as the next person, but I wouldn’t point out those things publicly in this blog, or ever want to make people feel I’m mocking them. But if you are not sure what to put or how to write it, there are reference materials all over the place, and people like me and my colleagues, who can help out.

So, some examples (thanks again to the Copyediting-List folks for providing some of them)

— A purple people-eater is purple and eats people, but a purple-people eater eats only the purple ones.

— Here’s a fascinating link showing the importance of word order:

— Here’s an example of how important language is in the legal field. And it’s not just in the legal field – while many students are not marked down for grammar and punctuation these days, a friend who lectures in speech and language therapy does, as a mistake in someone’s notes can cause many problems down the line.

— On a similar note, haven’t we all got colleagues or other people we communicate with who may not have great written language skills? Doesn’t it devalue their opinions a little in your mind, when everyone’s laughing at the latest email or sign?

— This is a long one, but it shows the importance of punctuation!

Dear Jim:
I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy – will you let me be yours?
Anne

Dear Jim:
I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?
Yours,
Anne

— Capitalisation matters too, in this great example from Andy Mabbett:

One area of capitalisation that divides even experts in the field is around species names. There are many types of black-headed gulls, and lots of little gulls, but only one species called Black-headed Gull (and it has a brown head!) and one species of Little Gull. Consider:

“Is that black-headed gull a black-headed gull?”

“No, that’s a little gull. The little gull on the railing is a black-headed gull.”

vs.

“Is that black-headed gull a Black-headed Gull?”

“No, that’s a Little Gull. The little gull on the railing is a Black-headed Gull.”

— A classic: Let’s eat Grandma!/Let’s eat, grandma!

— Lynne Truss did well out of this one: Eats, shoots, and leaves/Eats shoots and leaves.

— This one comes in various forms and with various names… I would like to thank my parents, the Pope and Mother Teresa.

Publishers and other purveyors of words have style guides, academic departments ask their students to reference books read in a certain way, and proofreaders and copyeditors (and copy writers) use reference materials such as the ones I’ve discussed before, to make sure that what they produce is clear and consistent. We do this, I think, on behalf of the reader, so they’re not distracted by mistakes, howlers and inconsistencies. My aim in my work is to help the writer express themselves clearly and accurately, so their readers can read their texts simply and easily, using their brainpower and concentration to absorb the concepts of the text at hand, or just enjoy a work of fiction without having to puzzle over the word the author meant to use.

So – why bother? Do you think I should? Do you think we should? And have I answered the question?

 
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Posted by on March 23, 2011 in Errors, Language use, Punctuation, Reference materials, Why bother, Writing

 

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On the semicolon

16 Mar

A while ago, I wrote a post about blogging more for 2011, asking people what they’d like me to write about; I had several replies. The responses had different themes: business issues; what I got up to during my working week; and specific things like the use of the semicolon and capitals.

I love the semicolon; I think it’s a thing of elegance and beauty. I use it a lot in my copyediting work, often swapping in a semicolon for a comma; I never know which changes my clients accept, but I hope those are some of them!

And now I’m going to stop trying to use it in every sentence. Like a bright colour in a room or a choice swear word in a conversation, it’s perhaps best used sparingly if you’re to get the full effect.

So: a definition. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines the semicolon thus: “n. a punctuation mark (;) indicating a more pronounced pause than that of a comma.” It also reminds me that it’s written semicolon, and not semi-colon, causing me to (a) check this in my other sources and (b) amend what I’ve typed already here.

And when do we use it? Here, I turn to New Hart’s Rules, which is recommended by the Society for Editors and Proofreaders and so is a style bible for me. Basically, you use a semicolon to divide two or more main clauses which complement or parallel each other and could stand as sentences in their own right. Basically, this makes the text flow better, as instead of being divided up into choppy, short sentences, you can create one, or a series of, balanced and elegant statements. Remember though, folks – if the second clause explains the first, a colon is more appropriate.

You can also use it in a list, in two ways: either where the items in the list have commas within each item, and a semicolon between each item will clarify matters (“They pointed out, in support of their plea, that they had interviewed all of the candidates, successful and unsuccessful; that they had contacted those people, by telephone if possible, who had not been successful; and that they had written to all the others”) or where there is a list separated from the rest of the sentence with a colon, as in my initial paragraph, above.

Interestingly for my international work and readers, there is no difference here between British English and American English.

Here ends my short lesson on the semicolon. Go on, try using one today!

 
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Posted by on March 16, 2011 in Language use, Punctuation, Writing

 

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So what does a proofreader / copyeditor / transcriber / copy writer actually do? (2)

09 Mar

Last month I posted a quick update on what I’d been up to, which seemed to be of interest both to those who know me and wonder what I do on those days when I’m not working at the day job and the evenings I have to rush back to my desk, and those who were keen to know what people in my profession actually do. So I thought I’d make it a semi-regular post, and I’ve done quite a lot of varied work this month…

In the past 4 weeks I have…

Copyedited two essays for a client undertaking a physiotherapy qualification, documents a client was submitting for professional development, 2 essays for my regular Taiwanese client.
Copyedited a newsletter and re-written one e-booklet on osteoporosis/copyedited one on the lower back for my regular physiotherapist client.
Written all of the copy for 2 websites, one for a motivational speaker, the other for a printing and graphic design company.
Re-copyedited a previous client’s PhD on the EU.
Copyedited a PhD thesis on psychology.
Substantively copyedited a science fiction novel.
Copyedited several articles, a longer piece and a company annual report for a new client who is a translator in Finland.
Copyedited and proofread one quarterly and one monthly publication for my regular American Club customer.
Copyedited and proofread a crime novel translated from the Italian.
Transcribed two interviews for my regular music journalist client.
Copyedited a dissertation on art for a Japanese client.

A nice mix of regular customers and new one-offs, and I did a bit of everything (proofreading, copyediting, copy writing and transcribing) which was fun.

Coming up:
Copyediting and proofreading a large American Club website.
Copyediting the next novel in a series.
A couple of PhDs where I’m waiting for the clients to finish working on the text.
More work tidying up translations from Finnish to English.
More work on American club monthly, quarterly and annual publications.
More physiotherapy newsletters and e-booklets.
More Italian crime novels.

For info on how I work with students and ensure they maintain authorship of their work, please see this post. And of course we all know the difference between copyediting and proofreading now, don’t we!

 
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Posted by on March 9, 2011 in Business, Jobs, Organisation, What Do I Do?

 

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Buzzwords in business and elsewhere

02 Mar

Time for another guest post, this time from Bernadette Jones from first4admin. Bernadette runs a Virtual Assistance company which offers administrative and secretarial support – and I work with her when she needs to offer my particular services to a client. She has also been a vital support to me in my first steps into the business of Networking, generously sharing tips and hints on how to proceed.

When I asked people if they would like to post a guest post on this blog, I didn’t specify what I wanted them to talk about, as long as it was related to words, business, etc., i.e. loosely related to the usual subjects of this blog. We’ve had Linda Gillard on creative writing, and we’ve got posts on training and writing marketing materials coming up. But for now – well, what are your favourite new buzzwords?

Buzzwords to the rescue!

Words are marvellous and buzzwords, in particular, are becoming more and more frequent. I stumbled across the word “greentailing” the other day, which defines either the selling of environmentally friendly products, or the use of eco-friendly methods in order to run a business. “Greentailer” is the noun derived from this word. Companies such as Walmart are pioneers of this form of retailing, and this form of business can only prove to become more popular as people are now more aware of environmental issues and are more likely to purchase from a company showing that it has the environment at the core of its business ethics.

Another buzz word which I have heard more and more of my friends use now is “glamping” which is used to define a luxury way of camping – brilliant! I have yet to hire a tepee or a yurt in order to camp, but I have already purchased Cool Camping England, published by Jonathan Knight, Paul Marsden and Andy Stothert. This is an excellent publication, giving information about very special places to camp in England. It is going to be one of my resolutions for 2011 to find a glamorous way of camping. Roll on the Summer!

“App” is also another buzzword which I particularly find appealing, and the American Dialect Society have elected the word “app”, which is a computer or smartphone application, as Word of the Year for 2010.

No doubt 2011 will serve to be another year where more and more buzzwords become more commonplace.

 
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Posted by on March 2, 2011 in Blogging, Business, Guest posts, Language use

 

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