About me

Dr. Taylor McConnell

About

I am a copyeditor and German–English translator, serving primarily early-career academics and small businesses. My goal is to help you communicate your message as clearly, succinctly and authentically as possible. This means preserving your voice while ensuring that the audience can immediately recognise your argument, evidence and analytical framework.

My philosophy is that academic writing can and must be made more accessible and that academics should be able to communicate to laypersons just as well as they can to their peers.

I am an Intermediate Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a UK-based organisation that promotes industrial standards and provides a measure of editorial quality among its global member base. The CIEP offers a wealth of relevant training courses for new and experienced editors and proofreaders, some of which may even be relevant to you – the author! I am also a member of Mediterranean Editors & Translators (MET), an organisation that supports language professionals in network building and skill development.

For more information on my background, training and interests, download my CV here.

editorial training

Plain English for Editors
CIEP, February 2022

Copyediting 1: Introduction
CIEP, February 2022

Proofreading Theses and Dissertations
CIEP, December 2021

Proofreading 1: Introduction
CIEP, November 2021

Großes Deutsches Sprachdiplom
Goethe Institut Freiburg
September 2020

Expertise

My specialisations lie primarily in the social and political sciences. In my PhD dissertation, I examined the construction and destruction of cultural memory in Croatia throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. I also re-introduced the term ‘memory abuse’ to memory studies to explain the interactions of power, violence, memory and identity in public-facing memorial spaces – monuments, museums, street art and so on.

I enjoy reading and editing texts on nationalism, development, public policy, education and memory, but I also welcome any new knowledge from the social sciences and humanities more broadly. As I do have a business background, I am also comfortable working on academic texts in a variety of business studies, primarily management and organisational behaviour, and on materials for small businesses.

As a small business owner, I know the ins and outs of marketing and the struggle of balancing the fun side of work with the necessary dread of bureaucracy. This is where I come in – if you ever need a hand to polish your reports, websites or any other relevant materials, send me a message.

I am also a German–English translator and am willing to work on all but legal documents, as I am not a court-certified translator. That means I cannot provide translations for driving licenses, passports and identity cards or any other official documents, but for all other needs, I am available to help. I speak German at a C2-level (first-language equivalent) and hold a Großes Deutsches Sprachdiplom from the Goethe Institut.

Taylor proofread and copyedited my academic monograph. He was detail-oriented, careful, and timely. He improved the style and flow of the text. By the end of his work, the manuscript was fully formatted in the publisher’s house style, indexed, and ready to be submitted. He was also, crucially, really easy to deal with.

Dr. Deval Desai
Lecturer in International Economic Law,
University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Academic background

PhD Sociology
University of Edinburgh
November 2020

MSc International Development
University of Edinburgh
November 2015

BA International Studies and German Studies
University of Pennsylvania
May 2014

BS Econ Management
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
May 2014