Quick Links for Impatient Readers
Overview of Services, Skills, and Background
Summary
A capable editor, rewriter, and writer, I’ve been freelancing for several years, drawing upon my broad educational, vocational, and avocational background, and always striving to optimize my work by approaching it in ways that suit my personality and aptitudes. Currently focused on acquiring and honing coding skills useful for Web development and other programming, and on acquiring projects where I can use these skills, I continue to offer editing, rewriting, and writing services to new and returning clients. Whether you need help with your written materials, with your Web or other programming code, or with a project where a guy with a drone could come in handy, feel free to look me up.
For a brief overview highlighting some of my skills and experience, please download a copy of my résumé. If you work for a company that’s hiring, or that might have use for a freelancer, do feel free to pass along a copy to the company’s Human Resources department. You may also wish to download and pass along copies of a letter of recommendation from the dean of a Master’s degree program I completed, a letter of recommendation from a California State Senator for whom I volunteered, and some recommendations that past employers, clients, and associates kindly provided for me on the ZipRecruiter job site.
Coding and Related Services ^
I continue to acquire and enhance my coding skills. A natural lover of both logic and the process of creative problem solving, I have found programming a perfect match for how his mind works, a welcome relief from the subjective aesthetics that editorial work often requires me to enforce. Some languages and tools in which I have acquired skills are the following: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, PHP, SQL, Brackets, phpMyAdmin, WordPress, and Divi. I also possess supplementary skills in image, video, and audio editing useful for front-end development and design: GIMP (image editing), DaVinci Resolve and OpenShot (video editing), and Audacity (audio editing). As well, I have basic training in drone photography and videography, a drone suitable for commercial work (Mavic 2 Pro), and a license to do such work in legal compliance with our ubiquitous administrative state (FAA 107 sUAS).
Editing and (Re)Writing Services ^
With freelance experience ranging from proofreading to thorough rewriting, including some new writing to enhance and expand client work, I most excel at closely analyzing and critiquing ideas and their implications: finding internal tensions and contradictions, recognizing problematic implications, and suggesting ways to correct such defects, giving clients’ work greater clarity and cogency. I have tended to specialize in rewriting materials written or translated by non-native writers of English. Covering a broad range of topics, these materials have often been scholarly, complex, and technical. Having once dreamed of becoming an academic myself, I have found satisfaction helping some professional scholars perfect their work. Though I will never accept a job writing new articles, papers, or books to be put under a client’s byline, I am more than happy to help clients turn their rough, inconsistent, and perhaps incomplete prose into the coherent, clear, and complete works they aspire to create.
Educational Background ^
My educational background includes two theologically oriented Master’s degrees, centrally concerned with the Bible and apologetics; two Bachelor’s degrees, one focused on literature and writing, the other on psychology; some IT certifications that, though dated, do demonstrate technical aptitude; a certificate program introducing me to the biotech industry; current and ongoing programming- and Web-related certificate study; drone pilotry, photography, and videography training (FAA 107 sUAS licensed since early 2020); and ongoing continuing education and self-directed study of English style and usage, computer programming, Web design and development, and assorted impractical subjects like philosophy and the scripts of languages I will never speak.
Vocational and Avocational Background ^
Prior to spending the last several years freelancing as an academic and general editor, rewriter, and writer, I acquired Information Technology (IT) experience in data conversion and recovery, and in basic network and computer maintenance; general office experience in customer service and support, and in basic administration; and additional experience in news monitoring, transcript editing, and marketing, as well as in harsh physical labor as a tile setter’s helper.
Personal Qualities ^
A lifelong learner, I am adept at acquiring new skills as needed, enjoy working through problems, and have a strong work ethic. Analytical, methodical, and conscientious by nature, I best thrive in cooperative rather than competitive environments, and I especially enjoy workplaces where thoughtful thoroughness is valued and working independently is the norm. Though I tend to see Myers-Briggs personality typing as about as scientific as sun sign astrology, hiring managers who take such typing seriously may wish to know that I’ve scored as either INTP (Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving) or INTJ (Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, and Judging) when I’ve taken such tests, results varying as my mood has varied. Finally, though I was once intelligent enough (read: good enough at taking tests) to qualify for Mensa, I’ve since consumed enough mainstream news and popular culture to now be much more average. This should make me able to fit in even at a large corporation whose work force mirrors the American populace. (Yeah, I’m not buying that one, either….)
Where You Can Find Me ^
Currently, I offer editing, coding, and related services through the following freelancing sites:
Should you require drone services and care to work with a fairly new pilot, it might be possible to do that through one of the sites above, though neither those sites nor my profiles there are specifically tailored to such work. I’m also set up on the following freelancing site created specifically for drone work:
Alternatively, particularly if you’re local to San Diego County, you may wish to hire me as an independent contractor independent of these sites. In that case, please contact me.
If you’d just like to network, you can find me on the following site created for that purpose:
I’m also set up on LinkedIn’s ProFinder, though I can’t claim to be an active user. Having never found LinkedIn very useful for finding work (despite the hype), I use it mainly just for keeping track of contacts and for sharing Pious Eye site posts. All the same, if you’d like to keep track of my current contact information, and to let me keep track of yours, feel free to connect with me. I’ve never yet turned down a connection request. (I have the same policy on Facebook, since, if it weren’t for fake people and their spam accounts, I wouldn’t have many Facebook friends. Since I never read the Facebook feed, spam accounts don’t bother me.)
Since, as I told one potential client, “my beliefs and values are not of this century,” as any reader of posts on this site will quickly realize, you may determine that my viewpoint and convictions are quite different from your own. Before you decide not to hire me based on one or another of my idiosyncrasies, however, do note that I’m happy to edit materials that I do not agree with (so long as pretending to agree with them is not required). It may even be that I find such editing more interesting than editing materials with which I do agree. (I am not able to edit materials that are vulgar or profane, or that promote immorality, however.) I’ve so far specialized in editing and rewriting academic materials written or translated by non-native writers of English (varying in subject matter and sometimes technical). I’ve also edited some medical forms, technical marketing documents, and membership guidelines written or translated by non-native writers, and have edited or rewritten various sorts of rough-draft prose by writers with varying English skills. I also proofread and edited a medical doctor’s book on a certain kind of therapy, written for a popular audience in a conversational tone. My education and experience are quite broad, so I can effectively edit a broader range of materials than these. I am much more skilled at spotting and correcting logical deficiencies and lack of clarity, even when this requires thorough rewriting, than I am at ensuring conformity to specialized usage guidelines and proofreading, though my thorough and conscientious nature does make me focus on even these latter, mundane tasks very closely. I do thorough work at moderate speed, so “rush” projects and I are not usually compatible.
So, if you’ve come here because you’re considering employing me as an editor, or enlisting my assistance in some related task (help with research, a coauthor for your magnum opus, whatever), I look forward to hearing from you. If your project requires a freelancer whose convictions and personality are close to your own, or at least similar in some key ways, feel free to explore this site to learn more about my convictions and such aspects of my personality as my writing makes evident. Exploring this site will also let you see how I write when I’m writing for myself, though I do not impose my own style on the materials I edit (unless asked to do so).
