ABOUT ME

I’m a professional editor based in London, UK, specialising in business and non-fiction content.

Professional background

Before turning to freelance editing, I spent 20 years working for Zenith, a media agency, as a researcher, analyst, forecaster, writer and editor. As a manager in Zenith’s Global Intelligence department, I had responsibility for developing new forecasts and business reports from concept to finished product; these were sold to clients around the world including media companies, investment banks and academic institutions.

A large part of my role involved editing work written by non-native English speakers to render it in polished, professional business English, so I have considerable experience at this. If you’re writing in English as a second or third language, you’ll find me to be a helpful and sympathetic editor.

Education and training

I have a BA (Hons) degree in Chinese Studies and Social & Political Science from the University of Cambridge. Like many writers and editors, I’ve always been fascinated by languages in general, so my degree was a perfect fit for my interests. Not only did I have the opportunity to study modern Mandarin and classical Chinese, but I was also able to delve deeper into language acquisition and use through modules in developmental psychology and psycholinguistics on the social science side.

In addition, I have a diploma in mathematics from the Open University. A list of the modules I studied with the OU is available on request.

I’m a Professional Member of the CIEP, the professional body for editors and proofreaders in the UK, and I’ve taken the following training courses with them:

Proofreading 1: introduction
Proofreading 2: headway
Copy-editing 1: introduction
Copy-editing 2: headway
Copy-editing 3: progress
Editing Digital Content

Interests

I’m a passionate lover of recreational language learning. In addition to rusty Mandarin, I speak fluent French, reasonable German, and a smattering of Dutch, Italian and Czech. I’m currently attempting Icelandic, which is proving to be a bit tricky. If all things language-related appeal to you too, don’t forget to take a look at my language blog, where I ponder all sorts of ideas related to language and languages.

When I don’t have my head in a book or a language course, you’re most likely to find me on Discord, chatting about my favourite Icelandic musicians.

Proofreading

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Copy-editing

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Ready to work with me?

Please get in touch using the contact form. If you have a specific project in mind, then helpful things to mention at this stage include the type of document you’d like me to work on, the approximate word count and what sort of deadline you have. I’m also very happy to answer more general queries.

The work she's done on our entire website is exceptionally remarkable. She perfectly understands what we need: correction of all text content and advice. It makes our site look very professional. We were very lucky to get Anne Austin for the editing of our website. Her experience and professionalism made a huge difference for our business. We highly recommend her for any type of project!

Aristide Atto, Ma Nanny et Moi

Anne was my first choice for getting my bachelor thesis proofread. She not only surprised me with the speed with which she was able to do the job, but was also incredibly helpful when it came to properly formatting my bibliography. I can't recommend her enough if you're in need of a second pair of eyes to check your writing!

Emma Sophia, freelance animator

Anne is a terrific proofreader, writer, editor, and publisher. She has exceptional English skills and is brilliant at transforming data and words into highly readable, well-written and engaging articles, papers, and reports. She has pulled together intelligence from across the world, synthesising it into published gems. She is super-intelligent, committed, loyal, and a thoroughly nice person. I could not recommend her more highly.

Frank Harrison, Croft Analytics

We have been working with Anne Austin Editing for three months now – and love it. Anne is collaborative – working with various members of our team to ensure the best piece of writing is produced. Her copy-editing insights are practical and her suggestions are well explained through real-world benefits. Being a start-up in a dynamic business sector, we need contractors who are fast, efficient and reliable – all traits Anne has shown plentifully. It is a pleasure working with her.

Patrick Driscoll, CN-Bio