Jude White at Lindum Scribes

Last night I went to see Jude White http://uk.linkedin.com/in/judecwhite at a meeting of the Lindum Scribes. Jude is a freelance proofreader who has worked with Karen Maitland www.karenmaitland.com/ on her books. She was very nervous but gave us a lot of information with regards to being a proofreader, but also what to expect if we ever get published! Her background is in education and she has had experience with designing publications which gave her an understanding of how things are produced. She set up her proofreading business in 1998 and has had many clients since then; including post grad students wanting their dissertations checking, as well as the NHS and the Police Service; which led to other clients. Most of her commissions now come via word of mouth recommendations. She is a member of The Society for Editors and Proofreaders: http://www.sfep.org.uk/

She does not make changes to the plot as this is the Commissioning Editors job, but it is her responsibility to ensure there are no errors in the text. So she does look at punctuation, spelling, clarity of text, consistency within the document, graphs and diagrams, as well as any references. She must look at every single letter and space in a document. She will often be called upon to flag up any legal issues such as copyright or libel infringements. However, she will check with her clients prior to starting, to ensure she knows exactly how much she needs to check and what is expected of her.

She works to a Style Sheet that the commissioning clients give her. Often, she is not given a Style Guide and here she writes one herself to follow. There is a British Standard for Proofreading which she must follow which stipulates corrections must be done in one of 3 colours. Red- Typesetter error, Blue - Author, Copy editor and Green for other queries on the text.

Cost / Payment is usually based on the client and what she is being asked to proof read. She usually charges per 1000 words but she does sometimes charge an hourly rate; again based on client and the local market.

The two reference books she uses are: New Hart's Rules: The Handbook of Style for Writers and Editors R M Ritter (Adapter), Oxford University Press and Butcher's Copy-editing: The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Copy-editors and Proofreaders, Judith Butcher (Author). She highlighted that it must be the latest editions of these books, as rules regarding text, spelling, punctuation, and what is acceptable, are changing all the time.

She was good enough to bring a couple of handouts. One was a copy of a test she had been set by the Central Office of Information (I think) to establish how good she was; prior to being given a particular job. It was difficult to say the least! The other handout she was good enough to put together specifically for the Lindum Scribes as they are interested in e-publishing.