Overview
For over 30 years I have provided editing, writing, and typesetting services to educational institutions, government agencies, non-profit organizations, and book publishers. I have worked on manuals, reports, training programs, online materials, and especially books published by the University of British Columbia Press (UBC Press) (Vancouver), Columbia University Press (New York), and the University of Manitoba Press (Winnipeg).
Honours awarded to books I have copy edited include the CLSA Book Prize (Canadian Law and Society Association); Donner Prize for best book on Canadian public policy (the Donner Foundation); Lavina L. Dock Award (American Association for the History of Nursing); John Wesley Dafoe Book Prize (Dafoe Foundation); Clio-North Prize (Canadian Historical Association); Clio Prize for the Prairies (Canadian Historical Association); and the Joseph Levenson Pre-1900 Book Prize (for China studies) (Association for Asian Studies).
Feedback from authors:
"This is the best job of copy-editing I have ever seen! Very impressive and much appreciated. We are in your debt."
"I can't say enough how much better it is after you looked at it. I really appreciate all your careful work."
"I am very happy with what you have done. Thus far you have obviously made the text more fluid."
"I have enormous confidence in you, going far beyond simple editing of copy."
"I appreciate your careful attention."
" I can't properly express my gratitude for the copy editor's eye for detail."
"Francis C. did a remarkable job of editing and saved me from many infelicities."
"One of the reasons it's a beautiful book, of course, is the editing skills on every page that no reader will see but every reader will appreciate. I just wanted to tell you again how much I enjoyed working with (and learning from!) you on this project. You made our sometimes fuzzy writing clear and crisp ... what more could authors ask?"
"His copy-editing is superb. The best I've ever dealt with. Great eye for corrective or clarifying verbiage, and rooting out bibliographic inconsistencies."
Services
Non-Fiction
Biographies & Memoirs
Earth, Space, & Environmental Sciences
Geography
History
Humanities & Social Sciences
Law
Life Sciences
Nature
Languages
English (CAN)
English (US)
Work experience
Self-employed
Sep, 1987 —
Present
Editing and writing (including technical editing and writing), course design, and typesetting of manuals, reports, training programs, and books for educational institutions, government agencies, non-profit organizations, and book publishers, as well as for individuals.
Portfolio
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Presents a complete descriptive grammar of Lillooet, an indigenous Canadian language spoken in British Columbia. Uses the classical structuralist method to give a detailed analysis of the thre... read more
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Newfoundland was the only British colony in North America to strike gold coins for general circulation. This was remarkable given that it was one of the poorest British possessions in North Am... read more
Copy Editing
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Do Canada and the United States share a special relationship, or is this just a face-saving myth? The Politics of Linkage cuts through the rhetoric that clouds this debate by offering detailed... read more
Copy Editing
Over a century, the Canadian prairies went from being the breadbasket of the world to a grain-growing region in a vast, global agri-food system. Magnan traces the causes and consequences of th... read more
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In April 1988, after years of failed negotiations over the status of the Northwest Passage, Brian Mulroney gave Ronald Reagan a globe, pointed to the Arctic, and said "Ron that's ours. We own ... read more
Copy Editing
The Sino-Japanese War (1937–45) had a devastating impact on China's population. Braving bandits and disease, the China Convoy – a Quaker-sponsored humanitarian unit – provided medical relief i... read more
Copy Editing
Nothing to Write Home About uncovers the significance of British family correspondence sent between the United Kingdom and British Columbia between 1858 and 1914. Drawing on thousands of lette... read more
Copy Editing
The vast temperate rainforests of coastal British Columbia are world renowned, but much less is known about the other rainforest located 500 kilometres inland along the western slopes of the i... read more
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Butterflies of British Columbia provides butterfly watchers, naturalists, and the professional biologist with an overview of the fascinating butterfly fauna of British Columbia and adjacent ar... read more
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Birds are among the most successful vertebrates on Earth. An important part of our natural environment and deeply embedded in our culture, birds are studied by more professional ornithologists... read more
Copy Editing
The rugged physical beauty of the west coast of Vancouver Island has long been a major attraction, but its distinctive avian population has also made it a major bird-watching destination. The ... read more
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The vast literature on the history of birds is continually growing, but rarely has this information been compiled so that it is readily available in one reference work.Birds of Ontariois such ... read more
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Birds of the Yukon Territory provides unprecedented coverage of the bird species of the Yukon. Lavishly illustrated with more than 400 color photographs and 223 hand-drawn bird illustrations, ... read more
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The Birds of British Columbia, Volume 4 completes one of the most important regional ornithological works in North America. It covers the last half of the passerines and contains 102 species, ... read more
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The five British and Canadian generals depicted in Corps Commanders were a surprisingly eclectic lot - one a consummate actor, one a quiet gentleman, one a master bureaucrat, one a brainy sort... read more
Copy Editing
How did American schoolchildren, French philosophers, Russian Sinologists, Dutch merchants, and British lawyers imagine China and Chinese law? What happened when agents of presumably dominant ... read more
Copy Editing
Both lionized and vilified, Claire L'Heureux-Dubé has shaped the Canadian legal landscape – and in particular its highest court. Only the second woman on the Supreme Court of Canada, L'Heureux... read more
Copy Editing
Approaching the legal profession through the lens of cultural history, Wes Pue explores the social roles that lawyers imagined for themselves in England and its empire from the late-eighteenth... read more
Copy Editing
Nunavut is a land of islands, encompassing some of the most remote places on Earth. It is also home to some of the world's most fascinating bird species. Birds of Nunavut is the first complete... read more
Copy Editing
Proofreading
The town of Ladysmith was one of the most important coal-mining communities on Vancouver Island during the early twentieth century. The Ladysmith miners had a reputation for radicalism and mil... read more
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Unwanted Warriors uncovers the history of Canada's first casualties of the Great War – men who tried to enlist but were deemed "unfit for service." What impact did military exclusion have on t... read more
Copy Editing
This landmark book dispels the idea that the period between the Second World War and the unification of the armed services in 1968 constituted the Canadian Army's "golden age." Drawing on rece... read more
Copy Editing
Invisible Scars provides the first extended exploration of Commonwealth Division psychiatry during the Korean War and the psychiatric-care systems in place for the thousands of soldiers who fo... read more
Copy Editing
Fifteen thousand Canadians were captured during Canada’s twientieth-century wars. They experienced the bewilderment that accompanied the moment of capture, the humiliation of being completely ... read more
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In December 1941, Japan attacked multiple targets in the Far Eastand the Pacific, including Hong Kong, where Canadian battalions werestationed. The disaster suggested that the Allies were tota... read more
Copy Editing
During the first two decades of this century, Sir William Mackenzie was one of Canada’s best-known entrepreneurs. He spearheaded some of the largest and most technologically advanced projects ... read more
Copy Editing
Biologists have long marvelled at how anadromous salmonids – fish that pass from rivers into oceans and back again – survive as they migrate between these two very different environments. Yet,... read more
Copy Editing
Tsilhqút’ín, also known as Chilcotin, is a northern Athabaskan language spoken by the people of the Chilco River (Tsilhqóx) in Interior British Columbia. Until now, the literature on Tsilhqút’... read more
Copy Editing
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A two-edged sword of reconciliation and betrayal, Chinook Jargon (aka Wawa) arose at the interface of "Indian" and "White" societies in the Pacific Northwest. Wawa's sources lie first in the l... read more
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Collected in this book are the personal life histories of four female St’at’imc elders: Beverley Frank, Gertrude Ned, Laura Thevarge, and Rose Agnes Whitley. These elders are among the last re... read more
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Here is the long-awaited grammar of the Musqueam dialect of Halkomelem, which Wayne Suttles began work on in the late 1950s. The Musqueam people's aboriginal territory includes much of the Fra... read more
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For many Filipinos, one word – kumusta, how are you – is all it takes to forge a connection with a stranger anywhere in the world. In Canada’s prairie provinces, this connection has inspired c... read more
Copy Editing
Over the last ten years there has been intensive field research in archaeology and paleo-geography in Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands), primarily by agencies such as Parks Canada, but als... read more
Copy Editing
Place names convey a people's relationship to the land, their sense of place. For indigenous peoples, place names can also be central to the revival of endangered languages. This book takes re... read more
Copy Editing
Planning Canadian Regions was the first book to integrate the history, contemporary practice, and emergent issues of regional planning in Canada. This much-anticipated second edition brings th... read more
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Proofreading
Manitoba is more than one of Canada's three prairie provinces. Encompassing 649,950 square kilometres, its territory ranges from Canadian Shield to grassland, parkland, and subarctic tundra. I... read more
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Sporting Gender is the first book to explore the rise to fame of female athletes in China in the early twentieth century. Gao shows how these women coped with the conflicting demands of nation... read more
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Remembering the Samsui Women tells the story of women from the Samsui area of Guangdong, China, who migrated to Singapore during a period of economic and natural calamities, leaving their fami... read more
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In late 1995, the drama Heaven Above (Cangtian zaishang) debuted on Chinese TV. The series featured a villainous high-ranked government official and was the first of the wildly popular corrupt... read more
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China shares borders and asserts vast maritime claims with over a dozen countries, and it has had boundary disputes with nearly all of them. Yet in the 1960s, while China was embroiled in a gr... read more
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Merry Laughter and Angry Curses reveals how the late-Qing-era tabloid press became the voice of the people. This book shows the tabloid community to be both a producer of meanings and a partic... read more
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Keeping the Nation’s House unsettles the assumption that home economics training lies far from the seats of power by revealing how elite Chinese women helped to build modern China one family a... read more
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A firm grounding in economics is integral to sound forestry policies and practices. This book, a major revision and expansion of Peter H. Pearse’s 1990 classic, is an essential book for forest... read more
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Everyday exposures to common chemicals found in homes, schools, and workplaces are having devastating long-term and inter-generational consequences on human health. At the same time, the risks... read more
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Canadians are getting sick from toxins in the air, food, water, and consumer products. In Cleaner, Greener, Healthier, David R. Boyd sets out to remedy Canada's environmental health problems. ... read more
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Under the emerging void-for-vagueness doctrine, a law lacking precision can be declared invalid. In this, the first book published on the subject, Marc Ribeiro offers a balanced analysis of th... read more
Copy Editing
Canada's Supreme Court decides cases with far-reaching effects on Canadian politics and public policies. When the Supreme Court sets cases on its agenda, it exercises nearly unrestrained discr... read more
Copy Editing
The New Lawyer, Second Edition, analyzes the profound impact changes in client needs and demands are having on how law is practised. Most legal clients are unwilling or unable to pay for protr... read more
Copy Editing
Whatever deficits remain in the Canadian project to make justice available to all, class actions have been heralded as a success. They have been employed over the past twenty-five years to ove... read more
Copy Editing
Scholars often accept without question that Canada's Indian Act (1876) criminalized First Nations. In this illuminating book, Shelley Gavigan argues that the notion of criminalization captures... read more
Copy Editing
Unjust by Design describes a system in need of major restructuring. Written by a respected critic, it presents a modern theory of administrative justice fit for that purpose. It also provides ... read more
Copy Editing
First signed in 1886, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works is still the cornerstone of international copyright law. In this groundbreaking book, Sara Bannerma... read more
Copy Editing
Few moments in Canadian history are as intriguing as the political battle between Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and the "Gang of Eight" provincial premiers who opposed his plans to "patriate" ... read more
Copy Editing
