Richard Walshe | Experienced copy-editor and proofreader for businesses, book publishers and journals
Lewes, UK
- [email protected]
- Phone
- 01273 470747
- Organisation
- Prufrock
- Membership Grade
- Advanced Professional Member
About Richard
My main goal is to improve your text. This may involve checking for errors, applying styles, fact checking, fixing formatting or intervening to improve the writing or make it clearer or punchier. Every job is different: book editing, journal work, proofreading annual reports and offering circulars, checking advertising copy... Some clients have been with me 20 years now, but I'm always happy to meet someone new.
Core skills
- Copy-editing
- Proofreading
- Journal work (including project management)
- Document conversion/content repurposing
- Copywriting/rewriting
- Project management
Current and past clients
- Mainstream and academic publishers including SAGE, Wiley, CUP and Macmillan.
- Public bodies and professional organisations, including the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, the BBC Trust, the Legal Services Commission, the RIBA, the Church of England and the International Olympic Committee.
- Fund managers, including Pantheon, Sovereign and Chiltern Capital.
- Corporate clients, both directly and through their design agencies, including Shell, Accenture, Dell, Vodafone and Aviva.
- Design agencies and strategic consultants, including Momentum ITSMA, OxfordSM and NS+R.
Confidentiality clauses preclude me from revealing some government clients and commercial clients.
Brief CV
From 1989 to 2000, I worked in-house for City law firms (Slaughter and May and Linklaters), proofreading reports, prospectuses and legal documentation and copy-editing newsletters and articles. For the last three or four years, I took over the training of new proofreaders. This involved devising a new syllabus, preparing new training materials, conducting training sessions and assessing trainees and interviewees. I also ran regular quality control exercises and compiled style sheets.
I went freelance in 2000, and greatly expanded my skillset over the first five years of self-employment to include copy-editing, proofreading, copywriting/rewriting, research, typesetting and project management. I also developed expertise in document conversion/content repurposing.
I was a enthusiastic early adopter of onscreen and online working, and have worked on CD-ROMs, databases, websites and e-learning packages in addition to the more traditional publishing formats.
My work has covered the whole gamut from small jobs such as journal articles, newsletters and brochures, which often require quick turnaround, to larger projects (books, reports and manuals), some of which can be as large as 500,000 words and require careful time management.
I have also undertaken project management, both on an ongoing basis (academic journals) and for one-off large-scale projects. The largest of these was 2.4 million words spread over 50+ volumes, and involved co-ordinating a team of six editors and liaising extensively and proactively with the client. It was completed on time and within budget.
I have been an Advanced (now Advanced Professional) member of the SfEP (now CIEP) since 2002.
Service(s)
Specialisms
Client types
Associated skills
Disclaimer note
The CIEP Directory of Editorial Services should be considered a point of first contact and prospective clients must satisfy themselves that members are capable of the work on offer. The Institute cannot be held responsible for the quality of work provided by any member listed in the directory. The members themselves are responsible for the maintenance and accuracy of their entries in the Directory and the CIEP has not made any attempt to vet them. The institute cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies in the Directory. Inclusion in the Directory as a freelance does not necessarily mean that the member is self-employed as defined by HM Revenue and Customs and the Department for Work and Pensions.