Jill Hughes's expertise at copyediting and fact checking is a towering competence that makes us feel sloppy and unschooled by comparison.
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Boyd Clarke and Ron Crossland, The Leader's Voice
Jill Hughes has been an active player in the publishing game for years. Her approach is simple and direct, with a reliance on what she considers the four guiding principles of quality editing work: maintaining the author's voice, improving readability and flow, checking facts, using a keen eye for detail, and playing the devil's advocate.
An avowed generalist, Ms. Hughes applies these principles to every project: from a scholarly text to an author's first novel, from a Web site loaded with technical jargon to a play written entirely in a cockney dialect . . . and everything in between.
Ms. Hughes considers herself among the luckiest of people in that she has a passion for her work. Even when she was a child, she enjoyed playing "teacher" with her red pencil and often tutored her real-life classmates in reading and writing. She also believes that her past pursuits—as a K-12 educator, a marketing professional, and a professional book reviewer—have equipped her well for the profession she now enjoys.
It is the role of the editor to improve the written word wherever possible. To some, that means making grammatical or technical changes that do little to enhance communication. A truly gifted editor enables writing to achieve its purpose with the greatest possible impact. For Jill, that is the editor's mark.
Jill's editing of my first novel (In Plane View, Morris Publishing) exposed several weaknesses that had been largely overlooked, ranging from grammatical errors to plot inconsistencies. She is an intelligent and articulate person, and very professional in her approach to the whole editing process.
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Michael D. McClellan, In Plane View
Ironically, I was ghostwriting a book about what happens when people die. The psychic author left me to sort out a rough narrative comprised of a confusing knot of conflicting verb tenses. I left it to Jill—and with wonderful results. She put the problems in the past tense, which made the future . . . perfect.
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Jack Williams, freelance writer
Jill Hughes' scrupulous editing and heartful feedback allowed the message to be clarified and expressed in a form that is so much more easily read and understood than I could have designed.
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Maggie Victor, The Choice for Love