Dr Timothy Jowan (Tim) Curnow

Having been a university academic for 20 years in linguistics, applied linguistics and language studies, I am familiar with humanities and social sciences ways of working. As a researcher and supervisor – and professionally trained copyeditor and proofreader – I know the publication requirements for journal articles, chapters, books and grant applications, as well as theses and dissertations.

I've been a freelance copyeditor for nearly a decade, working on a range of materials in a variety of topics (under the business name TJC Editing). While these have primarily been focused around languages, linguistics and language education, I have also done a great deal of work in fields relating to manuscript studies, particularly relating to medieval manuscripts (their edition, translation, transmission and materiality), as well as more broadly historical and philosophical/religious studies. But I've successfully worked in other areas as well – from edited volumes on surrealism, through articles on ecocriticism and reports on online misinformation, to theses for business studies! I'm currently the copyeditor for two journals: Language Dynamics and Change (a print and online journal of historical and comparative linguistics, published by Brill) and Linguistics Vanguard (an online journal that covers all fields of linguistics, published by De Gruyter).

While I only copyedit work written in English, I am fluent in Spanish (level C2 in CEFR framework), and reasonably competent in French, Italian and German (B1-B2 for understanding). I additionally have a basic level of Arabic (A1), and a knowledge of the Hebrew and Greek alphabets and grammars.

I have extensive experience with clients whose first language is not English ('non-native speakers'), undertaking what might more strictly be called language editing, but also working with clients to ensure that their text 'flows right' for specific English-speaking audiences.

I was born and brought up in Australia, and now live in Leamington Spa in Warwickshire, in the United Kingdom, so I'm familiar with UK English and Australian English, but I'm quite accustomed to writing and copyediting in (academic) US English as well; I'm also very used to working with author-date styles of referencing such as APA style or various Harvard styles, and also various footnote styles such as that of the Chicago Manual of Style, as well as the occasional foray into Vancouver-like styles such as IEEE style.

Materials I frequently edit

Journal articles, monographs, edited books, theses and dissertations, grant proposals, websites/blogs, government reports

In-house and freelance experience

Freelance since 2017

Prior to that I was an academic in Australia: lecturer and researcher in applied linguistics at the University of South Australia (2006-2016); various positions at three universities in Queensland (2003-2005); ARC postdoctoral research fellow at the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology (2000-2003)

Recent training

References course (CIEP) - 2023

Copy-editing 2 course (SfEP) - 2018

Copy-editing 1 course (SfEP) - 2018

Some of the clients I have worked for recently

Many individual academic authors

Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

Language Dynamics and Change (copyeditor for this journal, published by Brill, 2021 - present)

Linguistics Vanguard (copyeditor for this journal, published by De Gruyter, 2021 - present)

My academic qualifications

BA Linguistics and Spanish

BSc Statistics and Mathematics

PhD Linguistics

Specialised software I often work with

Word, Excel, LaTeX (and EndNote and Zotero for references)

Some testimonials from satisfied clients

"Thank you very much, the final version looks great. And I think all of us, editors and contributors, agree that having you on the project was fantastic!"

Dr Nadia Vidro, Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, UCL

"I must say I'm really happy and very satisfied with how you worked with the text, I feel it has really improved in terms of clarity, and you've certainly saved me from some trouble with my audience … So, I'm very grateful and very much satisfied, as I say."

Prof. Josep Soler, Department of English, Stockholm University

"We very much appreciate all your work on this. No one could do it better!"

Assoc. Prof. Angela Scarino, Director of the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures, University of South Australia

"Many thanks for your work on this paper. I really appreciated your eye for detail. This is much better than the usual copy editing I get from journals!"

Assoc. Prof. Chloé Diskin-Holdaway, School of Languages and Linguistics, The University of Melbourne

"Thank so very much for all your hard work on this. The pdf looks amazing, and you are truly a fantastic copy-editor to work with, so very fast and thorough."

Dr Esther-Miriam Wagner, Director of Research and Senior Research Fellow, Woolf Institute

"I've submitted! I can't thank you enough for your absolutely superb work. Really, I'm in awe. I don't know how on earth you spotted problems even in the Neo-Aramaic! I'm looking forward to the next opportunity to use your services."

Oz Aloni, PhD candidate, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge

"Thank you so much for your wonderful editing of my thesis in the last leg. It was very helpful … really appreciated your comments on references and the positioning of references in a sentence … and some issues in the theoretical argument … and many others! Many thanks again for that!"

Shujuan Xiao, PhD candidate, Faculty of Business and Economics, Macquarie University

• Editor
• Proofreader

• Anthropology
• Art & culture
• Communications
• Education & training
• English as a second language
• Humanities
• Political science
• Social sciences
• Languages
• Sociology
• Media studies
• History
• Religion & theology
• Language arts
• Linguistics
• Public policy
• Philosophy