Plain English Business Editing Services
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Since 2000, our plain English business editing services have helped numerous government and corporate clients across Australia and Asia.
By assisting our clients to talk more directly, clearly and appropriately to stakeholders and the public, we make sure they are more effective communicators.
Here’s a few examples of how our plain English editing and writing has offered more with less:
Before: Please take this communication as confirmation that we have received your request to cancel your policy and confirm that your policy has now been cancelled.
After: As requested, we’ve cancelled your policy.
Before: We maintain, and will continue to maintain, a genuine and sincere focus on our people’s well-being moving forward.
After: We’re committed to our people’s well-being.
Before: The most important action that you can take is to always practice good hand hygiene. There are a range of steps you can take to practice good hand hygiene and diminish your exposure and hence your chances of getting ill with coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
After: Good hand hygiene is crucial in avoiding COVID-19. You just have to follow a few simple steps.
Before: Once your patent, trademark or design is registered here in Australia, you will be able to use that patent, trademark or design to the exclusion of all others in Australia.
After: Once your patent, trademark or design is registered in Australia, no one else in Australia can use it.
Before: The power consumption will increase if the system is not networked. So when you are able, connect the system to decrease power consumption.
After: A connected system uses less power.
What Is Plain English Business Editing/writing?
Plain English business writing gives anyone a good chance of understanding your message on the first reading, and in the way you want them to.
It’s clear, direct writing that uses as few words as you need – avoiding ambiguity, verbiage and complex sentences. It does not, however, mean always using simple words at the expense of the most accurate, or writing like a pre-schooler.
Poor Business Copywriting Can Be Costly And Potentially Disastrous
If your audience doesn’t understand your business’s professional writing due to bad grammar, unclear wording or inappropriate style and tone, you can lose business as well as credibility. So, whether you’re working in a government department; as a government proposal writer; or writing an annual report, corporate website, blog, business report or any other business collateral; our professional business writing will help you establish your objectives, audience, tone and style for the best possible business copy solution.
What’s The Difference Between An Editing Service And A Proofreading Service?
Many of our prospective clients aren’t sure if they need an editing service or a proofreading service. Here’s the difference. Our editing service simplifies and improves the language, expression and overall quality of the writing, word choice and sentence structure. As part of all this, we’ll also ‘proofread’ the document, i.e., eliminate grammar, punctuation and spelling mistakes.
Professional proofreading services on the other hand are provided at the final stage of the editing process — after you’ve created your final draft — and focus on surface errors like misspellings and grammar, and of course punctuation. Whether you’ve just completed a multi-million dollar tender, prepared your annual report, finalised a new government policy or revamped a newsletter, our leading team of professional proofreading experts and professional editors will eliminate all surface errors like misspellings, grammar and punctuation, and correct verb tense and sentence structure. Using tracked changes, they will make the corrections to your copy leaving you with the option to accept or reject. They can also apply your house style guide or create one for you. Our proofreading service is less ‘hands on’ than our editing service. But professional proofreading performs the essential role of ensuring your document is error-free and consistent with house style.
Why Get Professional Proofreading Services?
Sure content is important but, like it or not, the way your document looks is directly related to how it’s judged.
You’ve worked hard to develop your copy so the last thing you want is careless errors that blight all your good work. Taking care of the details creates a good impression for your audience, stakeholders, voters, shareholders and other interested parties.
The Global Status of CCS Report
APM was the plain English editor of the Global Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) report for three consecutive years.
CCS is an emissions reduction technology critical to meeting global climate targets. This annual report documents important milestones for CCS over the year, its status across the world and the key opportunities and challenges it faces.
Taking an initial draft of supplied content, APM’s substantive editing assessed and shaped the copy to:
- Improve its structure, organisation and content
- Clarify meaning
- Improve flow
- Smooth out the language
We ensured it was audience appropriate and in a single tone – not in the different voices and styles of its different authors. We also identified any duplication or inconsistencies across the document, checked that footnotes were correct, and identified any gaps in references.
The final product was presented with great success at the United Nations. The excellent design was done by the very talented team at Fluid, an APM strategic partner.
Medibank annual report
Australian private health insurance provider Medibank, is Australia’s second largest health insurance provider.
For the past several years APM has been commissioned to proofread the final PDF of Medibank’s annual report before it was printed to make sure it was complete and there were no errors.
We had to check:
- Here had been no words obviously misplaced by the designer
- Pagination, contents and numbering of tables and graphs were correct
- Pictures were correctly placed and labelled
- Grammar, spelling, punctuation was 100% correct
- Editorial style had been maintained in the design
- There were no widows and orphans
- Tables were not split unnecessarily
- All sections of the report appeared as per the original plan
- The table of contents aligned with the document
- All web links went where intended and worked
- Styles (such as italics, bold) had been correctly translated from the Word version
We also took a cursory glance at all charts and infographics to confirm they accurately represented the statistics being highlighted.