About

Proofreader Editor Writer/English Grammar Tutor

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We commend ourselves as creative, reliable and sympathetic people who spare no effort to give our clients good value. A request for our service is welcomed with a precise statement about what we can do to provide that service. Our clients soon find out that they are free to put their requests candidly. Experienced as we are at sorting out writing and study-related problems, we cannot but respond equally candidly: We know where we can and cannot accommodate you, so nothing you ask us will draw a vague answer.

Sophie Johnson does most of the editing, proofreading and writing, but pressure of work sometimes obliges her to seek other editors' help. She graduated from the University of Melbourne, where she read for her BA degree in English and Philosophy before continuing to MA studies in Philosophy.

She took a post-graduate Diplomas in education from the Hawthorn Institute of Education (Dip.Ed) and from the Royal Society of Arts (Cambridge Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Adults).

A long-time employee of the Education Department of Victoria, Australia, at its Distance Education Centre, author of The Stuff of Argument and freelance editor, she supplemented her Australian professional life with several working visits to the UK, where she taught for the Kent, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire Local Education Authorities, wrote for the Meno Thinking Skills Service, a University of Cambridge Local Examination Syndicate, and worked as a freelance editor for several commercial publishers of teaching texts.

She is currently the proprietor and principal tutor of Proofreader Editor Writer English Grammar Tutor. Having posted her work, the grammar book The Well Bred Sentence, on this site in mid-2001, she now hopes to find time to complete her new work, Spelling Facts.

A committed grammarian, she welcomes all discourse on linguistics, and undertakes to be gracious when felled by friendly fire.

Andrew SW Johnson, Sophie’s dearly beloved, charming, brilliant, handsome son, left this world on 4 July 2012, the day after his thirty-sixth birthday. His boisterous love of great good fun still rings in her ears.

Andrew on Buda Hill in the early summer of 2011, pointing to Parliament in Budapest, Hungary, as did his hero, the revolutionary Lajos Kossuth.

Andrew gave this advice to our law student clients:

English Grammar Tutor's Law Tutor pool consists of postgraduates - LLB (Hons) and LLM - who are continuing their studies.

It rapidly became apparent to me during my own experience as a law student that there is more to successful essay-writing than simply demonstrating one's legal knowledge. Of course, relevant and up-to-date materials are the source or foundation upon which to build, and accurate research is therefore an essential starting point. But essay structure, correct use of English and focus on the specific question are as important, if not more so. Most lecturers and tutors set a single question for all the members of a large group to tackle. Consequently, I believe it is vital to distinguish one's work from others' by paying attention to the psychology of the marker: He or she will not rate an essay highly if it is apparent that the writer has merely paraphrased source materials, or if the essay is tedious to read for any other reason.

The above certainly holds true. Yet many students, through sheer weight of assignments-to-be-done, often offer up a 'night before' piece that cannot but exhibit those faults that will irritate the marker.

Other students miss deadlines and thereby unnecessarily lose a percentage of the marks that their writing deserves, and they incur the ire of the marker. The key to scoring highly is to spend time researching, analysing and considering for one's self the legal problem to hand, while at the same time meeting deadlines.

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