PLAIN & FANCY LANGUAGE HOUSE * Word Hospital  ***  Professional Editing a home for crafted words - your documents and stories put to the world  What is the Plain & Fancy Language House? What happens, exactly? Sending Files What does PFLH not do AUD$60 per hour - Proof Reading & Editing What is the Plain & Fancy Language House? * PFLH is an electronic editing enterprise. It professionally edits and proof-reads documents. PFLH is operated by Thor May PhD, a language specialist with many years of experience. He gives your company's documents, or your own writing, a professional finish in English. PFLH has special skill in editing documents that have been written by authors whose first language is not English. (Dr May has spent thirty-four years working across cultures and between languages. This included five years in China and seven years in South Korea).   What happens, exactly? If you or your company have a document to be edited, please contact PFLH to discuss it. Communication by e-mail works best. If possible, with longer documents send a sample of the material to be edited. Make clear who is likely to read the document; (good writing always targets a particular audience). We need the sample to estimate how complex the editing task will be. PFLH will reply promptly with an estimate of the editing time and likely cost. Charges are normally in Australian dollars per hour or part thereof for each draft as submitted. Bank account numbers will be provided on request, or the Paypal system can be used (www.paypal.com). Extensive rewriting naturally takes you more time, and sometimes a good deal of editorial comment and/or suggestion by us is useful to help you rework material. This is for your benefit. We don't charge for a minute more than is necessary! The aim is to give the editor a fair reward for his time, and to give you an economical service! (Note however that we are NOT in the business of ghost writing original documents). With long documents, especially books and theses, you may be asked to pay as each section is completed. As a very rough guide, a 300 page doctoral thesis in linguistics which needed extensive editorial comment, and whose author spoke English as a second language, took 46 hours of editing time. In long documents, people very often change their wishes as work progresses. Then they send second drafts. PFLH is reasonable about this, but we must charge for some new editing when it is needed. Work is done in a friendly, efficient manner, as quickly as possible. We work to a high standard. You are free to withdraw from the agreement at any time. Sending files You can send a text file as part of an e-mail. This is the most reliable method. You can attach a file to the e-mail. Many online sites will also let you share large files with others for download free (search Google.com). You can send a data CD or DVD. PFLH can fetch files from your Internet site by ftp (file transfer protocol) if you give us a password. We do not, at present, have our own ftp address. Document formats: Best: *.rtf (rich text format) keeps your formatting. In MS Word, go to the Save as type box in the Save As  menu. We find that working with *.rtf in MS Word we can quickly mark editorial changes for you by using a different font colour. Most word processors can save in *.rtf. Html format and MS Word .doc formats are also fine. If you are using a recent edition of MS Word, try to remove any macros before you save in *.rtf; (we have found that macros sometimes create problems). If you are using a non-international system, such as the Korean system *.hwp, please save your document in *.rtf before sending it. Note that pdf format files are not designed to be edited. They are for finished printing or viewing. If necessary, we do have a way to extract from most pdf files (if they are not images), but formatting may be lost.   Other formats: We can handle most document formats. Let us know of your needs. What PFLH does  not do 1. PFLH is not a general secretarial service. Finished materials will be returned in electronic form, usually as an e-mail attached document in *.rtf format (or MS Word, or other format if requested). We are not in the business of typing up material for its own sake, binding it elaborately, and so on. 2. PFLH does not do translations from other languages. We can check that your translations are written in perfect English. 3. PFLH is not a ghost writing service. If you want somebody to write your PhD for you, or your killer novel, PFLH is not the place to come. 3.. PFLH is not a specialized résumé (employment history) service. We will edit résumés if requested, and have some experience in the field. However, there are many companies devoted to preparing nothing but employment résumés. They can probably do the best job for the least cost in that area.   Thank you for your inquiry; e-mail thormay@yahoo.com Plain & Fancy Language House Brisbane, Australia Thor May , proprietor PhD, MA (Linguistics), P'grad. Dip. Tchg., RSA /CTEFLA Specialist in English Language