 I began my editing career editing theses pro bono for my friends with English as a second language. It was never meant to be a career option. Then a friend of mine introduced me to an editing company that he worked for and I became a part-time editor. I found that I really enjoyed the work. A few years later Anago found me on LinkedIn and invited me in. By then I felt a lot more experienced and felt ready to tackle a wider range of subjects and I really enjoy that side of editing just doing as many different subjects as you can and getting into the cutting edge of technology. You know that you are seeing the actual work that's going on right now which is really cool. I love doing that. So as a career option editing has been great because it's kept me in the scientific arena without having to cope with the competitive side of academia which I didn't really like. So but on the downside you've got to cope with just if you're working from home you've got to cope with distractions and other people being around so you've got to be quite disciplined and but keeping your own hours, being able to work the hours that you want is awesome if that's what you like to do. So my free has freelancing become any easier today. I'm not really sure because if you have the right qualifications it's very easy to get into if you find work with a company like Anago because they're always looking for editors in the science and technology engineering and mathematics fields but if you want to go independent then there's a lot of competition. Anago has definitely helped me grow as an editor because they've provided me with steady work in a diverse range of subjects from architecture to robotics and pretty much everything in between. I even got a paper on volleyball once. Anago has given me full-time work and financial security. They also offer higher level tasks like writing abstracts and cover letters which help you to develop other skills as well. And since starting Anago the quality of my editing work has definitely improved because I've become more attuned to catching details like many English and second language authors use the wrong symbols for degrees and I've learned to pick these out pick out these little details. So I'm much more adept with some of the word features now. For example I use the find function a lot to pick on abbreviations if a term's been abbreviated and it's used only once the abbreviation is not needed. The word function is really good at picking out these things and determining whether the abbreviation has been used again as well and the regular feedback that they provided me in the early stages helped me as well because it helped me to pick out my strengths and weaknesses and I've learned to maintain the author's voice. Now this is really really important and only comes with experience. Maintaining the author's voice within the constraints of academic writing cannot be overstated the importance of this. I never had any formal training myself as I mentioned before my editing experience started doing pro bono work. There are always plenty of students at universities and other institutes whose first language is in English so if you are friends with them, befriend them and help them with their work then you can get editing experience that way. For the technologically competent there are tools out there like computer tools for editors which shows you how to create and store macros but I don't really use those tools but they're there if you need them and want them. Some editors actually swear by them. Finally don't be misled by those lists of editor rates that get passed around on online forums. They really encourage you to go for the higher rates but if you do that if you go independently then you'll put a lot of unbillable time into updating your websites, finding clients and promoting your business. Now that's great if that's the way that you want to go but don't be worried if that's not the way you want to go. Outsourcing is great. I found outsourcing is really good for me because I don't have to worry about promoting my business. I don't have to worry about clients defaulting on payment and the work comes in steadily and all the management work is done for me. All I have to do is sit there get the work in get it out and get paid at the end of the month and that really works well for me but overall you can make a pretty good living out of outsourcing so if you want to get a foot in the editing door then Argo is a great way to go. Thanks for listening.