Say yes.

In late November, a friend recommended me as a proofreader to a friend of hers who is doing her PhD. Would I be interested in proofreading her thesis, 90,000-plus words by 31 December?

At the time I was elbow-deep in finishing my studies for the year, proofreading a short story for a friend ... oh, as well as that small matter of my day job.

I gulped a bit. And then I said yes. Because it felt right. Because I knew I'd always wonder "what if?" if I turned it down.

Not long after I'd started the project I came across this quote by Richard Branson, and I thought it described my situation perfectly.

When I started I didn't know if I could proofread a PhD thesis. I'm a student - I still have a lot to learn. I've never proofread such a long document. Any PhD candidate is going to be extremely fussy about their work, and who can blame them when they've laboured over it for so long? This particular thesis had already been extensively edited before it reached me, so I have to read it very carefully to find the mistakes.

I'm coming towards the end of the project now, and I'm so glad I followed Richard Branson's advice. I have learned more from this one project than from four months of study.

I've learned that I can proofread a PhD thesis, and I can do a good job.

I've learned about the importance of time management.

I've learned how to keep a style sheet. I learned this in my studies, but it didn't sink in until I had to keep a style sheet for real.

I've learned about the importance of communicating with a client.

I've learned the difference between "long term" and "long-term"!

Most importantly, I've learned that the small, persistent voice that urges me to say yes to this thing that is way out of my comfort zone probably knows what it's talking about.

Anne-Marie x

The curse of high apostrophe intelligence.

"If this satanic sprinkling of redundant apostrophes causes no little gasp of horror or quickening of the pulse, you should probably put down this book at once. By all means congratulate yourself that you are not a pedant or even a stickler; that you are happily equipped to live in a world of plummeting punctuation standards; but just don't bother to go any further." - Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

I found this cartoon on Facebook earlier this week, and it gave me a good laugh.

I think people are either born with the curse of High Apostrophe Intelligence, or they're not; and if you were born into my family, there's a good chance you have High Apostrophe Intelligence.

I was correcting my teachers' punctuation by the time I was about eight {yes, I knew how to make myself popular}.

The only time I've experienced road rage was when I was stuck behind a poorly-punctuated truck on SH2 between Hastings and Dannevirke. For about 100km I gripped the wheel and looked for a place to pass so I didn't have to keep read the four lines of writing on the back of the truck. The first three lines were separated by commas; the last line had no punctuation at all.

WHY?! Why would you bother putting in commas on three lines and not put a full-stop at the end of the fourth?!

If you think punctuation doesn't matter in this day and age, I recommend you read Eats, Shoots and Leaves - it's funny and it's informative. Or try reading a piece of writing which has the punctuation taken out, or is poorly punctuated. Poor punctuation can slow a reader down; and no punctuation at all makes writing almost unintelligible.

Those of us with High Apostrophe Intelligence know ;-)

Anne-Marie x