*Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

A big thank you for your support during these challenging times.

My day involves sitting at my desk every morning to work after enjoying a leisurely breakfast with my husband. I take a break for a homecooked lunch (a decent one hour and a half break) and work again until those deadlines are hit — perhaps with some marketing work thrown in to promote my business so people can find me, and relaxing in the evening. Then hit repeat.

Advantages & disadvantages

The advantages are: flexibility, spending time with my husband, being my own boss. Also, helping others, working in a comfortable environment away from office gossip and stressful working conditions. As well as being able to creative write some mornings when waiting on client work coming in. The disadvantages, are income uncertainty, holiday uncertainty, and the lack of support from the Universal Credit (UC) system. A system which is not designed to support freelance workers whose income fluctuates. You are removed from the system after two “good” months, and have to attend meetings and justify searching for work which negatively impacts searching for work (two hours on buses for a fifteen minute meeting? What a waste of time! Thus, I’ve found that since restrictions for UC have been lifted to attend meetings and justify work history, this time it has been easier to complete paperwork and let me get on with working and building my business instead of ticking boxes.

Why I left fulltime employment

I left fulltime employment because I disliked the work environment. Mainly, the sense of being a faceless number who didn’t deserve promotion and fair pay despite overworking whenever required. So, I said, no more. No more being taken advantage of. I returned to university to get a PhD and launched my own business in 2017. Still, that been said everyone needs to find their own niche and work hard not to under price themselves and take work from other people.

My business is always evolving. Thus, I often take time off from blog writing to focus on reaching potential clients in other ways. Sadly this means I am not continuing my Emma vs. Grammerly series. Though I still check in now and then to gawp at reviews people leave for the software on Trustpilot, and invite you to do the same.

Who is Emma Parfitt?

Emma Parfitt is a proofreader with 18 years of writing experience with businesses, academics and creative writers. She obtained a Creative Writing MA (St Andrews University) and a PhD in Storytelling (Warwick University). Then set up her own proofreading business and became a published author of fiction as well as academic literature such as Young People, Learning & Storytelling (Palgrave Macmillan).

Get in touch!

L’article COVID-19 and my business est apparu en premier sur Emma Parfitt Proofreading Editing Services.

As I browsed eBay Inc. for glass grinding equipment (an insight into one of my hobbies there)… I found written product description that made little sense. I feel very sorry for the business customers that have to slog through this text to use their grinding equipment.

So it’s Emma Vs Grammarly time!

Here’s the text edited by Grammarly (1) and me (2):

(1) Grammarly picked up the same incorrect verb usages, missing articles and some (but not all of the incorrect document spacing). Plus, it introduced an error of its own by suggesting usement should be changed to basement.

(2) Emma produced a perfectly readable document for business customers.

The result? After a Grammarly check the document still doesn’t make any sense, it is badly written. Another win for Emma.

Please contact me for any business documents, customer product information, reports, website material. I’ll be happy to help your business improve its documents.

L’article Monthly Challenge: Emma Vs Grammarly! est apparu en premier sur Emma Parfitt Proofreading Editing Services.

L’article Monthly challenge: Emma vs Grammarly est apparu en premier sur Emma Parfitt Proofreading Editing Services.