Why Should You Hire a Writer or Editor?

I can help you organize, clarify, and present information to your audience

I have the training and experience to ask you the right questions to make your document(s) as effective as possible.

You should never be the only person to proof your own work

When you proofread something you wrote yourself, it is very easy to 1) read what you THINK you wrote, not what is really on the paper or screen, or 2) read "between the lines" and allow what you know about the topic to fill in your understanding of what is actually written down. Everyone - you, your clients or customers, your employees - benefit from another set of eyes. Even writers need editors!

Spelling and grammar checkers don't catch everything

Spelling and grammar checkers are wonderful tools - I would never publish or distribute a document without first running a spell-check - but they do not catch everything. These checkers usually only tell you if you have written something that is out-and-out wrong; they are not as effective when it comes to correcting word choice, writing style and consistency, and meaning. A trained and experienced editor can provide a much more thorough review. I can help your document not just be right, but also be excellent.

Being a smart, successful professional doesn't mean you can't use help

Admitting you could use the services or a writer or editor does not mean you are stupid or ignorant. Writing and editing, just like any profession, requires specific education and experience. I have edited the work of PhD's who are brilliant in their fields - but their fields were not the detailed use of the written word.

An outsider's view of a document can bring ideas for improvement

The biggest problem with many documents that were designed to communicate knowledge is that they don't succeed at providing that knowledge to the intended audience. Why? Because the people that wrote the document all had implicit understanding of the topic, so many ideas that should have been spelled out were assumed to be understood. That sets the document up for failure when it reaches an audience that does not have that implicit understanding. Software documentation and user instructions are especially vulnerable to this problem. An outside writer or editor can help you perform a "reality check" on your document - does it communicate what it should to the right audience? It is better to make sure it does before it is published or distributed.

You are too busy

Very simply, proper, thorough editing and formatting of a document takes time. And perhaps your time could be better spent doing other aspects of your job, instead of editing and formatting your documents. As a trained writer and editor, I can clean up your document in less time than it would take you to do it, and I would enjoy it more than you would, because that is my job, not a distraction from my job.