PLAIN & FANCY LANGUAGE HOUSE

Word Hospital  ***  Professional Editing *** Personal English Tutoring

a home for crafted words - your documents and stories put to the world

Adelaide, Australia

 

Thor May, proprietor


PhD, MA (Linguistics), P'grad. Dip. Tchg., RSA /CTEFLA
Specialist in English Language

mobile (+61) 0479 154 831; thormay@yahoo.com

 

 

 


US$40 per hour - Proof Reading & Editing - Personal English Language Tutoring

 

 

What is the Plain & Fancy Language House? 

 

  • PFLH has two expert roles:

    a) English language tutoring for adults and teenagers in the Adelaide region, Australia. (Special: $54 per hour for tutoring and 1, 2 or 3 students can share the cost. More than 3 will be extra.)

    b) PFLH professionally edits and proof-reads documents for businesses, governments and individuals worldwide.

 

  • PFLH is operated by Thor May PhD, a language specialist with many years of experience. Dr May has spent thirty-five years working across cultures and between languages. This included five years in China and seven years in South Korea, as well as five years in Pacific Islands universities. He has taught in Australian universities, and has decades of community experience with immigrant English language students in Australia. He has written a large number of articles about language, teaching, linguistics, and topics of social interest (see https://independent.academia.edu/ThorMay).

 

English Language Tutoring

 

  • Thor May lives in the Adelaide region and enjoys tutoring English by personal arrangement. Please make contact!

  • Thor has helped generations of students with speech, writing, listening and reading. Everyone is different. Personal attention from a professional can do wonders for your English.

  • He can help with public speaking, or organizing ideas for presentations, articles, essays and research.

  • He is also happy to talk about Australian culture, as well as history, geography, economics, current affairs or other topics which may interest you (your own interests are the fastest highway to language mastery).

 

Editing

 

  • PFLH has special skill in editing documents that have been written by authors whose first language is not English.

  • Dr May gives your company's documents, or your own writing, a professional finish in English

 

Editing Sample

 

 

What happens with editing, exactly?

 

  • If you or your company have a document to be edited, please contact PFLH to discuss it.

 

  • Communication by e-mail works best - thormay@yahoo.com

 

  • If possible, with longer documents send a sample of the material to be edited. We need the sample to estimate how complex the editing task will be.

 

  • Make clear who is likely to read the document; (good writing always targets a particular audience).

 

  • PFLH charges a reasonable flat hourly rate. We have found charging by the hour to be the fairest system for everyone.

 

  • Bank account numbers will be provided on request, or the Paypal system can be used (www.paypal.com). My Paypal ID is thormay@yahoo.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.

 

  • 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 like Dropbox.com will also let you share large files with others for download free (search Google.com).

 

  • You can send a data CD or DVD, or even a USB stick.

 

  • 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: Microsoft Word file formats are the most widely used, especially the *.doc format. *.htm or *.html files are also fine. We find that working in MS Word we can quickly mark editorial changes for you by using a different font colour. This saves time, and saves you money.

 

  • If you are using a recent edition of MS Word, try to remove any macros before you save. (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 *.doc, *.rtf, *.htm or *.txt before sending it.

 

  • If you are using *.txt with non-latin characters (e.g. Korean hangul, Chinese characters, Arabic, Farsi etc.) remember to change the encoding to UTF8.

 

  • Do not send *. pdf format files. This format is not designed to be edited. *.pdf files are designed 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 convert most document formats if necessary. 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 *.doc format (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.

 

4. PFLH is not a specialized résumé (employment history, CV) 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
Adelaide, Australia

 

Thor May, proprietor


PhD, MA (Linguistics), P'grad. Dip. Tchg., RSA /CTEFLA
Specialist in English Language

mobile (+61) 0479 154 831; thormay@yahoo.com


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