Karen Francis

Karen Francis – Editor

Skilled non-fiction copyeditor, experienced in academic books. Diverse range of themes, e.g. science, biography, Classics and history.

Overview

I'm an experienced copyeditor and proofreader and an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading. I worked in construction and engineering from graduation in 2007 to 2020, first as a design manager, then as a technical writer and finally as a bid writer and proofreader.

As such, I have lots of corporate experience in the building industry, but am also skilled in editing academic books, which I did part-time from 2015 to 2020 (when I went full-time freelance). I have a Classics degree, so arts, literature and philosophy are a passion – and I'm a qualified Tai Chi instructor! A lot of my work has been in the fields of physics, maths and tech, but more recently it has also included fields as varied as Eastern European history, self-help and maritime history. Basically, as long as it's non-fiction, I'm good to go – I've proven time and again that my skills apply, whatever the subject matter.

I've worked extensively in tender submission environments, so I'm happy with tight deadlines and thrive under pressure. I like to work directly with the author to review copy sentence by sentence to make suggestions that ensure absolute clarity of meaning, while of course checking and refining spelling and grammar. I've been lucky to work with some great clients so far, including Oxford University Press, Pearson, Brill, Edinburgh University Press and Watkins, among others.
Services
Non-Fiction
Biographies & Memoirs Education & Reference History Law Math & Science Philosophy Technology
Languages
English (UK) English (US)
Certifications
  • Member of CIEP

Work experience

Self-employed

Jun, 2015 — Present

Freelance proofreader and copy-editor with copy-writing experience. I have an academic background in Classics and Ancient History and a professional background in Construction and Engineering. Experience working for a range of academic publishers on a freelance basis, including:
Oxford University Press,
Royal Society of Chemistry,
Brill,
Institute of Classical Studies,
UCL Press,
Verso Books.

Karen has 4 reviews

Professionalism

Quality

Value

Responsiveness

John G.

John G.

Mar, 2024

Karen was great, exactly what I needed. Fine reading of my work, noticing lots of stuff I missed (and I thought I had gone over it pretty thoroughly!). I'm American, writing in the American style, and she is British, yet she was quite at home in American idiomatic English, catching me accidentally using British spellings and expressions! My manuscript is so much better since she gave it the wor...
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John P.

John P.

Dec, 2023

Karen was at all times polite, friendly, responsive and highly professional and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend her. The standard of Karen's work was extremely good and was delivered in a timely fashion, even if that meant working into the evenings. She was a keen-eyed proof-reader, made some important editorial suggestions that were carried forward in the project and wasn't at all phased by...
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Nithiyan N.

Nithiyan N.

Dec, 2022

She is very good. Reedsy shouldn,t keep the link to one drive for my document. You must return reviewed document as an attached file. This will make life easy for me. You can't have a control of my document. I didn;t granr the permission to you.
Avery S.

Avery S.

Mar, 2022

Karen has been a delight to work with. She was responsive but she also contacted me when she had questions or needed clarification or guidance. I am pleased with the final product to such a degree that I look forward to working with her on future projects.

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