On Capitals

When I used to think of capitals, Paris, Madrid, Bangkok, Rome and my home city of Edinburgh sprang to mind, with imaginings of holidays in the sun (not always of course) and visions of visits to art galleries and historical monuments. Now that I'm an academic proofreader, when I think of capitals I think of capital letters - most of all that rather annoying phenomenon - 'random capitalisation'. This is something I encounter a lot and something which also causes me extreme frustration and to be honest occasional confusion. This post is intended to help you avoid misusing capital letters.

Dissertations 2012: Great Expectations

DISSERTATIONS: POST 6

This year I will not only be blogging/proof reading/editing dissertations for people undertaking Master's courses - I will also be supervising dissertations at the University of Edinburgh. In addition to my key aim to provide my students with excellent supervision I am also hoping that this experience will also help me to narrow down and focus on precisely what the difficulties are that International postgraduate students face when undertaking degrees in the UK. Something that will benefit my business (and this blog) and also provide me with an opportunity to develop some further useful insights as a researcher. The dissertation posts on the blog this year will therefore centre around the development of the dissertation from conception to fruition, particularly developing from the broader needs I identify in my own students.

Therefore, this first post in relation to the dissertation season of 2012 will not re-iterate the ground covered in my dissertation posts from last year (see here, here, here, here and here), but will instead offer a little caution . . .

Tense about tenses?

I frequently get enquiries from foreign language students who wish to know what tense to use at various points within their work. This is more the case with longer pieces such as PhDs or Master's dissertations, but also applies to shorter essays and to points as straightforward as how to reference a source. In this post I will cover what tenses to use in which part of your work and why. This might seem like a very 'EFL' related post - but the truth is, even those whose first language is English find determining which tense to use to describe their methodology section in the introduction to their work once the research has been carried out a real problem.

Punctuation 1: Punctuation matters

My son is learning to read and write but is somewhat mystified by the 'squiggles' on the page, as he calls them. Full-stops [.] followed by upper case letters, question marks [?], even exclamation marks [!] and speech marks ["] make sense to him; it is the other symbols that seem some what irrelevant to a six year old. As a proof reader I realise he is not alone in experiencing confusion over the respective uses of the comma [,], semi-colon [;], colon [:] and dash [-]. I have until now avoided writing about punctuation because I know many people feel very strongly about the punctuation rules they follow - so please only read on if you consider yourself to be open-minded on the subject . . .

New opportunities

The start of a new academic year brings fresh ideas and new blood to the universities in the UK and elsewhere in the English speaking world. Giving me the opportunity to attract some new customers (not only those recommended by tutors and friends) to my website. This is not such a busy time for me, giving me the opportunity to get back to blogging, to introduce newer readers to things they should consider now that they are entering into studying in a new country and a different academic culture . . .

"Writing my Dissertation"

DISSERTATIONS: POST 5

An idyllic wood cabin in the middle of a forest with only the sounds of birds for company and the click, click, click of my keyboard, coffee pot bubbling away on the stove and inspiration wafting its wings overhead . . .

That's how I always picture myself when squaring up to an extensive writing challenge. The desire for isolation, endless uninterrupted solitude, silence and somewhere beautiful to wander and ponder my thoughts when the words struggle to flow seems like the perfect recipe for producing a work of unrivalled genius and insight . . .

Dissertation in pieces

We'll worry about how it fits together another time!

Dissertations: Post 4

So I finally blog again on the topic of dissertations after promising to on my facebook page several times and letting down my readers - profound apologies; but as I have discovered, before starting your dissertation, many of you have been rushing to finish off and hand in final assignments and reflections on newly completed courses (hence, you and I have been busy, busy, busy . . .). Anyway; hopefully now the time has come for you (and most likely for me too soon) to start really focusing on your dissertations.