The Writer

Introduction: A professional writer and editor for more than 20 years, I have a flair for words, and I enjoy the creative process of using my wordsmith expertise to make my clients' writing clear and forceful. Documents I write and edit include: • Articles for Newspapers and Magazines • Blogs & Blog Posts • Brochures & Flyers • Business Plans • Letters & Queries • Marketing Materials • PowerPoint Presentations • Press Releases • Resumes & CVs • Social Media Texts • Website Texts (Home pages, About Us, etc.) I have published in The Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, the Boston Business Journal, Victorian Homes, The Improper Bostonian, Banker & Tradesman, Boston Homes, the Cambridge Chronicle, and many other leading publications. My 24 years of copy-editing experience includes editing texts of a published chronicle on MIT's recent development history, school papers, doctoral dissertations, book manuscripts, screenplays and business plans. I delight in tightening up texts and upgrading grammar to make my clients' ideas more clear and forceful to your target audience. I can help you with the following, and more: • Spelling • Grammar • Punctuation • Use of cliches • Awkward phrasing • Stylistic wordiness • Sentence structure • Imprecise word choice • Paragraph construction and transitions Editorial guidelines I follow: • APA Style • MLA Style • Turabian Style • Chicago Manual of Style • Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style" • AP (Associated Press) Stylebook and Libel Manual • "Polishing Your Prose" by Steven M. Cahn and Victor L. Cahn Teachers to whom I am indebted for showing me how: "Cut, cut, cut. Cut words, cut phrases, cut letters." — Victor L. Cahn, Professor of English, Skidmore College "A clear, short argument is always best. Your argument would have been stronger in two pages, because you would have cut some irrelevancies." — Barbara J. Kaster, Harrison King McCann Professor of Communication, Bowdoin College "This sentence needs to be broken down, simplified, and clarified." — William D. Geoghegan, Professor of Religion, Bowdoin College "This clause says nothing extra, and can therefore be omitted." — Denis J. Corish, Professor of Philosophy, Bowdoin College "Not clear; confused or impossible to follow." — Edward Pols, William R. Kenan Professor of the Humanities, Bowdoin College "You don't elaborate on the conclusions you've drawn thoroughly enough." — G.E. Kidder Smith, Jr., Professor of History, Bowdoin College "Be sure your papers are short, precise, and to the point." — Willard F. Enteman, President Emeritus, Bowdoin College "Try to improve your style of writing and to be more critical in your choice of words." — Vlada Petric, Harvard University "Get to the point more quickly... Put the deeper sections first... Your transitions seemed abrupt... If you committed any sin, it was overwriting." — Abigail Erdmann, Brookline High School "Watch consistency... Be terse and precise about what exactly your examples are proving... Inaccuracies and imprecise diction [word choice] obscure your points." — Beth Thompson, Brookline High School "Try to be simple and straightforward... Try to vary the lengths of your sentences more... Sometimes it is wise to leave some things out... Don't use so many semicolons. Use periods." — Ellen Goff, The Park School "Pull your short, fragmented paragraphs together into more unified ones." — John Spicer, The Park School "There are simpler, more elegant ways to do this." — William Satterthwaite, The Park School "Try during your revision to keep as many of the author's own words and sentences as possible." — Jonathan Shaw, The Park School "Somebody said that words are like inflated money. The more you use, the less each one is worth. Go through your entire letter as many times as it takes. Annihilate all unnecessary words, sentences and even paragraphs." — Malcolm Forbes, "How to Write a Business Letter or Make a Speech" "The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter; it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning." — Mark Twain, Letter to George Bainton, October 15, 1888 "I'm sorry I wrote you such a long letter; I didn't have time to write a short one." — Blaise Pascal, French philosopher "Simplify, simplify." — Henry David Thoreau, "Walden" "Brevity is the soul of wit." — William Shakespeare, "Hamlet" In addition, I am proficient in Quark XPress; Adobe InDesign and Photoshop; and Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, all on a Macintosh platform. I am also an expert Internet researcher, and have edited many Wikipedia entries.