At the Australasian Medical Writers conference earlier this year, Sarah, a freelance writer, mentioned that she had been contacted by several new clients via LinkedIn after she updated her profile in line with advice from a webinar. Sarah kindly passed on the link to the webinar, and a couple of weeks ago I got round to watching it. I’m still only about …
Does using Word add-ins save time?
Remember how, decades ago, we imagined that labour-saving devices such as washing machines, driers, vacuum cleaners and dishwashers would mean we’d have lots of extra leisure time? But somehow, it didn’t work out that way. I think there’s a similar situation in editing, in that we now have lots of different tools to make editing more efficient, yet editing seems …
Learning about e-books
I’ve just started an online course — Editors and e-Books — with the Editorial Freelancers Association in the US. The blurb about the course says that it will ‘help editors learn the ins and outs of e-publishing, so they can confidently guide self-published authors from manuscript to e-book.’ Which is exactly what I need, given that I’m currently working with …
An alternative to an infographic CV
This week I’ve been writing a newsletter article about my attempts to get myself an infographic CV (for those who aren’t familiar with the concept, this article explains it well). An infographic proved to be beyond my budget, but in researching the topic, I found some alternatives, such as Visualize.me and Re.vu, both of which can create a graphic from …
LinkedIn to the rescue
I’m currently editing a travel narrative, which makes a change from my normal fare of technical documents. However, I’m also formatting the document in MS Word, and yesterday I hit a snag. The author starts each chapter with a level 1 heading immediately followed by a level 2 heading. He wants both headings to appear on the contents page, but …
A science writing MOOC
I’m pleased to have completed the Writing in the Sciences course from Coursera. It was an interesting experience, and a good introduction to MOOCs. What did I learn? Primarily, that my usual practice of starting with a blank page and expecting to fill it with erudite prose is NOT the best way to write something. Instead, I now go for a …
Finding new clients
Since I started my business about 3 years ago, I’ve been fortunate to have a few high-value clients who have given me plenty of work. Of course, it was a bad idea to have all my precious eggs in so few baskets. However, with a constant stream of projects, it was difficult to find the time or the motivation to …
Coursera — a fantastic resource!
I discovered Coursera a couple of weeks ago, thanks to a conversation with a friend who is retired, but mentioned that he’d been taking a free course on model thinking from the University of Michigan. I looked up the organisation and noticed that a science writing course was starting shortly. I signed up for it, mainly to see how someone else …
My new standing desk
Prompted by a video-link on Twitter about standing desks, I’ve now added a standing option to my repertoire of about anti-RSI strategies (just as well, given that an editing job last week required almost 30 hours of editing over 3 days!). My solution is rather low-key compared to those shown in the video. I simply place the laptop on top of a …
Pleasant surprises
Most of the messages I receive through the contact form on my website are spam. However, last week the contact form brought me three interesting things: an offer of work from a research organisation in the US, a message from a former colleague I’d lost touch with, and greetings from someone who did a research project with me at University of …