English Finish copy-editing

About English Finish

English Finish was set up by freelance copy editor Artemis Gause, who has worked in the bibliography and editorial teams of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford DNB, published by Oxford University Press, UK division), and as in-house copy editor at the American College of Greece (Athens). She has contributed twelve articles to the Oxford DNB and written pieces of literary criticism on modern novelists.

Artemis studied Human Sciences (BA Hons.) at Oxford University, English Literature (MA) at the University of East Anglia and Publishing Studies (Buchwissenschaft) at Ludwig-Maximilians Universität in Munich, Germany. She has lived in England and Germany and is currently based in Athens.

Artemis specialises in copy-editing material written in English by non-native speakers and is experienced in bibliographic research and editing. She also works as a freelance translator (from Greek into English).

Terms, Conditions etc.

Our terms & conditions are laid out in detail in the contract that we will send you once you have decided to go ahead with your commission. You are welcome to request a sample copy of the contract in advance; here we have summed up the basics and have added a few tips that we hope you will find helpful when preparing your manuscript.

Step 1: contact us

When you contact us, please include in your e-mail

a short, clear description of your work (e.g. ‘illustrated book on the history of sailing ships’, ‘paper on nonverbal communication and music performance’, ‘a manual for community workers’, ‘a feature-length script’).
a word count of your work. If you’re not sure how to do this, consult the help files of your word-processing software.
your deadline.
a style sheet or a link to your publisher’s style guidelines for authors.
your contact details (e-mail and postal address; day telephone number).
your capacity: please specify whether you are the author, co-author or editor of the work you intend to submit.
a sample of your work: for short works (under 500 words) you may send the entire document. For longer works, please send a representative sample (if, for instance, your work is full of tables and charts, please include one or two in your sample), allowing about 500 words for works up to 20,000 words, or 1,500 words for works around 30,000 words or longer.

Step 2: the contract

We will get back to you with an estimate based on the details you have sent us and any queries we may have. We will also send you a contract, which we will ask you to sign and return to us. There you have three options:

printed contract sent by post: if you prefer this route, we will e-mail you the contract as a digitally signed document and ask you to return a printed and countersigned copy. If you opt for conventional post, we strongly recommend that you return your contract by courier.
digitally certified PDF: this is our preferred method, provided that you have set up a digital signature.
digitally signed e-mail: we will send you the contract as a certified PDF. If you cannot sign the PDF digitally, we will ask you to return it to us as an e-mail attachment. In that case, your e-mail must state that you have read and accept the contents of the attached contract, and be digitally signed by you (more on electronic and digital signatures here).

Step 3: completion & payment

You will receive the edited document as an MS Word^TM attachment, unless otherwise specified in the contract. Normally,

for short works under 500 words you will be asked to pay within a fortnight of receiving the invoice. For longer works, payment is normally due within a month of your receiving an invoice from us.
payment by direct bank transfer is preferred.

Tips for Clients

We use mainly Hart’s Rules and the Chicago Manual of Style, unless you instruct us otherwise. If those names mean nothing to you, don’t worry. Just tell us whether you or your publisher would prefer British or American spelling (see also ‘house style’ further down).
We work mostly on screen. For that reason we will ask you to send us an electronic copy of your text by e-mail or on a CD, in MS Word^TM or a format compatible with MS Word^TM.
If you’d like us to work on hard copy please send a typescript/printout plus an electronic copy of your text in the format specified above. This speeds up our work enormously and will save us time and you money.
Your typescript/printout, if you send one, should be

double-spaced
with wide margins (at least 1.2 inch/3cm on both sides)
set in 11-point font
fully paginated

House style: if your work has been commissioned by a particular publisher, check whether there are guidelines for the established house style. Often guidelines covering the basics are available to contributing authors on the publisher’s website.
Special terms, neologisms: if you use rare or newly coined terms specific to your discipline, or terms that you have invented yourself, please warn the copy editor and proofreader. It’s always a good idea to compile a short list of such words and send it along with your main document to the copy editor, proofreader, and your in-house editor.
Electronic and digital signatures: if you are not familiar with these types of signatures you may wish to consult the relevant EU documentation. Note that according to directive 1999/93/EC ‘an advanced electronic signature based on a qualified certificate satisfies the same legal requirements as a handwritten signature. It is also admissible as evidence in legal proceedings’ (source). You can find out more about the difference between electronic and digital signatures here.

Please make sure that you

send us the final draft of your text. If you decide to make significant changes after you’ve submitted your document please bear in mind that you will be charged for the extra time it’ll take the copy editor to integrate those changes.
are clear in your mind about the level of editing you require. Think, e.g., whether you need to have your bibliography simply spell-checked, or formatted according to a particular style, or whether you’d like to have the details of each entry checked in library catalogues. Remember that checking the accuracy of cited page numbers is your own responsibility.
try to double-check all your facts before submitting your document. If your document is full of figures, tables, dates, names and similar information please let us know whether you need the copy editor to check your facts & figures for accuracy. Again, remember that whatever saves us time will save you money.
run a spell check before submitting your document. Automatic spell-checkers (such as the one that comes with MS Word^TM) have to be used with care, however, it’s a good idea to keep yours turned on – you’ll almost certainly catch some typos.
always double-check quoted material! Unless you provide the copy editor with photocopies of the original sources for every single quotation in your text – and are generous with your budget – quoted material will be checked only for spelling and style.

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web address: www.englishfinish.co.uk e-mail address: info@englishfinish.co.uk you can also contact us at: englishfinish@gmail.com