About me
Luke Finley Editorial is owned and run by me, Luke Finley. Here are the things you’ll want to know about me:
- professional editor and proofreader since 2013/14
- hundreds of hours of experience copy-editing and proofreading
- specialisms include social and public policy, development economics research, equalities and diversity, community relations, social sciences, memoirs …
- … but I work on lots of other subject matter too
- Advanced Professional Member, Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP – formerly the Society for Editors and Proofreaders)
- I’ve trained with CIEP and Publishing Training Centre
- with fellow editor Laura Ripper, I wrote the CIEP training course Plain English for Editors and the second edition of the CIEP guide Editing into Plain English
- I’m also a tutor on several CIEP courses.
Before 2014 I worked in the public sector, on social policy, community relations and community engagement. Before that I was an anti-racist organiser and educator in the voluntary sector. This is relevant too, because:
- I have broad knowledge of the subject matter, conventions and terminology of these fields/sectors
- I wrote all sorts of texts myself: policy documents, project outlines, funding bids, public consultations, campaign publicity
- my finest hour: boiling down a 50-page council policy to 10 pages of practical, plain-English guidance
- even if it wasn’t in the job description, I was just always one of those people others ask to check their spelling, grammar, punctuation and wording.
Before that:
- I worked in book publishing for a couple of years after graduating university, in the editorial and production departments
- I got a first-class degree in Combined Studies in Arts from Newcastle University, mainly in English literature and language.
English was always my best subject at school, and books were always my thing. Apparently I could recite The Giant Jam Sandwich from memory almost as soon as I could talk.
Luke Finley Editorial is based in North Shields, at the mouth of the Tyne in north-east England. This site features images of some of the local coastline.