Ayesha Chari

Advanced Professional Member

Location	Kent, UK
Email	.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Website	Ayesha Chari \| Independent Editor
ALLi	Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi)
ACES	Full Member of ACES: The Society for Editing

Hi! I'm Ayesha and I specialise in sensitive editing of academic and scholarly writing.

I offer different editorial services, all of which have at their core sensitive editing, perceptive problem solving, constructive creativity and conscious collaboration.

With nearly two decades of editing experience, I'm a friendly professional offering exemplary commitment to quality, schedules, budgets and client confidentiality.

Types of material: Academic | Non-fiction | Scholarly works | Journal articles | Monographs
Primary subject areas: Interdisciplinary | Culture studies | Anthropology | Ethnography | Identity | Performance studies | Developmental studies | Social Sciences
House style expertise: Chicago Manual of Style and Hart’s Rules (US–UK styles)
Reference styles: Harvard, CMoS, APA, MLA, Vancouver

I'm happy to collaborate with publishing co-workers, new writers and established authors, academics and researchers, and prefer projects requiring direct liaison with authors/translators to resolve queries. I can also adapt quickly to new styles and delight in creating house styles for projects when required.

Technical skills range from in-depth editing (rewriting, substantive editing, line editing, copyediting) of books, journals and monographs to basic typesetting, layout and design of text.

Although I can't take on full-length book projects at the moment, do get in touch to consult on any aspect of publishing and best practices in the industry.

Services

Content editing
Copyediting
English-language editing
Line editing
Rewriting / substantive editing
On-screen editing and proofreading
Research
Referencing

Subjects

Academic (general), biology, business/business studies, developmental studies, earth sciences, country/area studies (India, developing countries, Southeast Asia, South Asia), economics, education (biomedical, general), English literature (literature in translation, world literature), environment/energy, geography (sustainable development), life sciences (anthropology), non-fiction (general), social sciences/studies (culture studies, gender, identity, performance, sociology), tourism/travel (India), transport (policy and planning)

Media and tech

Journal articles, conference proceedings, monographs, multi-author book chapters, reports, working papers and other short pieces

Edit primarily in MS Word (with track changes). Competent in using Adobe Acrobat Pro, Google Docs, MS Office, QuarkXPress; familiar with macOS and Microsoft Windows

Clients (partial)

Ideas on Fire (US); Kognity (Sweden); London School of Economics (UK); The Language Editor (UK); SLG Press (Oxford); Menard Press (UK); Oxford University Press (UK); Seagull Books Pvt Ltd (India); SR Nova–Techset (India); Sunrise Setting Ltd (UK); international research organisations and independent academics (global)

Writings, interview, etc.

'Wherever you go, there you are: Not-so-new learnings from parenting and editing' (CIEP blog, 10 February 2023)

'Making choices: Mindfulness in difficult times' (ICF blog, 20 May 2021)

'Editing tests, clients and the editor' (CIEP blog, 10 March 2021)

'Of Indian Englishes, eating heads and doing the needful' (CIEP blog, 16 September 2020)

Outside the Book interview (6 October 2020)

Training, CPD, professional affiliations

Courses from the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP)

Plain English for Editors (2021)

Courses from the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), now CIEP

Web Editing (2018)
Efficient Editing (2017)
Copy-editing 2: Progress (2014)

Courses from the Oxford Publishing Group

Rewriting and substantive editing (co-organised with Oxford Brookes University) (2016)
Project management (co-organised with SfEP) (2015)

Continuing professional development

Attended ACES annual conference: 'Refine' (2021)
Attended annual CIEP conference (2022; virtual: 2020, 2021)
Attended annual SfEP conferences (2015, 2017, 2019)
Led session on STM editing at annual SfEP conference in 2016

Professional affiliations

CIEP Advanced Professional Member (active)
ACES: The Society for Editing, Full Member (active)
ALLi Partner Member (active)

Experience

Independent editor since 2013 (previously self-employed 2011–12); editor (trade, academic, fiction & non-fiction – humanities and social sciences), Seagull Books Pvt Ltd, Calcutta, India, 2006–11 and 2013; assistant editor (copy-editing – STM journals, particularly bio-medical), Macmillan India Ltd, 2004–06

Qualifications

MA Education (special education & educational management), BA Education (subsidiary subjects: English, history, environmental science)

Testimonials

Ayesha Chari acted as copyeditor for [the IPGRC] conference proceedings that encompassed 19 papers written mostly by non-native English speakers. As editor of the proceedings, I highly recommend her as she is an excellent copyeditor. The quality of her work was thorough, her organisation exceptional and her communication with authors and my team and I was clear and precise. It was a pleasure working with her and I am planning to engage her again in the future.

Dr Tanja Poppelreuter, Director of Postgraduate Research Studies, School of Science, Engineering and Environment, University of Salford, Manchester, UK

(Project completed in April 2023.)