The Finish Line On-Line™ for English as a Second Language (ESL) Writers
On-line editing, proofreading, and writing critiquing— When your message has to be right!
Download The Finish Line On-Line ESL One-Sheet (PDF 417k) >
Why this service? Why now? There are challenges that both English as first language and second language writers face. There are fewer employees doing more work. Even if these employees are skillful in editing and proofreading (and they’re generally not), they’re tired. They’re not objective. They’re too busy. Whether it’s a proposal, customer letter, or any other critical document that involves money, work, contracts, or your reputation, it’s critical to ensure that messages are easy to read, navigate, understand, and respond to. If not, if the reader has to work too hard or the document contains costly and embarrassing mistakes, you risk a lot….too much!
And if you write English as a second language, there are additional challenges to ensuring that your documents are clear, sufficient, relevant, and mistake-free. You may struggle with:
- Using the right words and phrases in English to convey exactly what you mean. When going from your native language to English it’s critical that you don’t innocently use a word or phrase that has a negative, insulting, or incorrect meaning in English. You can’t count on spell check because spell check can find only incorrect spelling. It will not find the wrong word or phrase if the words are spelled correctly.
- Thinking in your first language and then having to shift to English (another often time-consuming step in the writing process).
- Creating the appropriate tone, using the right salutations, closing, and “niceties,” and knowing how to differentiate between direct and harsh, friendly and too familiar, and more.
- Selecting the appropriate level of detail and organizing the information so that it is easy for the readers to follow, finish, and understand.
Just a few examples: (There are many many more)
A brilliant engineer who speaks English very well but who speaks and writes it as a second language relates his struggle with English prepositions, such as “in, on, around, off”…using the wrong preposition or omitting the preposition altogether. He relates his concern about a sentence he wrote in a critical customer letter. The sentence read:
“You can count us out.”
He meant:
“You can count on us.”
“A major international corporation contracted me to help with the written and oral proposal efforts for an $85 million government contract. The company rep said they contracted me because they lost a contract and when the client requested feedback as to why they lost, they were told ‘your proposal was disorganized, hard to follow, and just too much work to get through!’ I was hired for the next proposal to make sure that didn’t happen again. There was too much on the line!” —Ronnie Moore
In May, the sales manager sent the logistics for the October national sales meeting to hundreds of employees, vendors, and consultants. Everyone got busy scheduling the dates (October 7–9) into their calendars. Travel was booked. A few weeks later, the sales manager noticed that the dates were wrong in the information sent. The conference dates were October 6–9! By the time it was all over, more than $25,000 was paid in rebook fees and airline penalties. Not to mention the embarrassment and cost of losing credibility!
In a client letter, a sentence read:
Our team is not ready to make your deadline.
It should have read:
Our team is now ready to make your deadline.
How does The Finish Line On-Line™ work?
It’s three simple steps:
- Send soft copy (or hard copy) to Moore Communications for editing (message intervention) or proofreading (finding mistakes, such as typos, punctuation, spelling, etc.) or both. You pick your tier of service. We will give you a fee range and turnaround time, based on the length and complexity of your document and the tier of service you seek.*
- We do our work and get it to you by the appointed deadline.
- You send out a clearer, more readable, impressive document with fewer mistakes. And, if one mistake, one problem, is found, isn't it worth it?
Why does the Finish Line On-Line™ work?
Three reasons:
- This service is performed by Ronnie Moore (or one of her trained associates, your choice). She’s been a written and spoken communications speaker, trainer, consultant, and author for nearly 20 years. After more than 1200 audiences, years studying and applying Plain Language principles, countless articles, books, CDs, and DVDs, she is considered one of the nation’s most respected communications experts…a perfectionist and a prolific writer herself. Although American-born, Ronnie comes from a European family, and she has worked with ESL professionals for more than 20 years.
“If it has to be right, have Ronnie review it. Ronnie has helped us take our documents and slide presentations to the next level. She also has the high-level skills needed to work with writers who speak and write English as a second language. My first language is Norwegian; some of my staff and colleagues speak Spanish, Arabic, or Dutch as their first languages. We all speak English very well, yet we have specific writing challenges that require Ronnie’s masterful hand when the document is critical to our continued business success.”
—Terje Gulbrandsen, Gulbrandsen Engineering and Consulting
- It is geographically agnostic, done on line (unless you prefer hard copy), but you can be anywhere and we can help you. No travel time or costs to expend.
- There are too many reasons to list here why we can’t edit and proofread our own writing. There are many problems caused by wordy, disorganized, mistake-filled writing. Investing in The Finish Line On-Line™ will pay for itself many times over!
How can I get more information, including fees and services offered?
Please contact Ronnie for more information about The Finish Line On-Line™.
* Fees and turnaround times are quoted before contract with no obligation. Rush projects are accepted and generally incur an additional fee.
Download The Finish Line On-Line ESL One-Sheet (PDF 417k) >
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