



Cutting the crap since 1981
I have over four decades of experience in the printing and publishing industry, during which I rose from in-house proofreader at a small printing office to chief copy-editor at a global publishing house.
In 2012, I was headhunted by a US multinational corporation for whom I localised and edited webpages, and I have several well-respected client companies that use my services exclusively.

For Business

For Students

Expertise

Experience
Producing clearly written documents inspires confidence in customers and employees. Foolproof improves the content of your online persona and business-to-business image.
Foolproof will ensure that your dissertation is in the best shape possible: your words will flow freely and your content will be comprehensible.
Abstracts, books, case studies, corporate literature, dissertations, journals, mail-shots, manuals, press releases, reports, slide presentations, theses, web content.
Over 42 years in publishing means that Foolproof is well placed to cast a critical and sympathetic eye over manuscripts, ensuring text flows rhythmically and looks the business.
Testimonials
Dorothy Stannard
Sylvia is an eagle-eyed proofreader with an excellent knowledge of grammar and punctuation, plus good communication skills. She is reliable and flexible, and can be trusted to meet tight deadlines.
Tony Stowers
‘I love how you use different adjectives and verbs that mean what I intended to say but add vigour and variety to the scenes they describe.’ ‘You’ve done some outstanding work adding new noun… Read more
Martin Sayers
Bless you, thanks Sylvia! All good – great suggestions and corrections, have implemented almost all of them. I was going a bit word-blind with it, so this has been a massive help. Invoice p… Read more
Denise MacDonald-Kiernan
Sylvia helped produce my Open University Psychology project in 2010. She produced work to an exceptionally high standard and always met mutually agreed deadlines. As I am blind, I needed the inf… Read more
Sarah Shaw
If you are wondering whether to hire a copy-editor, my answer is yes; and if you are wondering whether Ms Foolproof is the one for you, my answer is double-yes. Sylvia has worked through the text of … Read more
Tom Le Bas
I met Sylvia at Insight Guides when I started there in 1997 – when she’d only been in publishing for 16 years and was still learning the trade… She was very friendly and one of the few normal people i… Read more
María Scheibengraf
We hired Sylvia to copy-edit a very large website in a very short time, and the quality of her work was outstanding. She’s got great people skills, too, and communication with her is always smooth a… Read more
Brian Bell
I have commissioned Sylvia to proofread many travel guidebooks. She became my proofreader of choice because of her meticulous attention to detail and her sharp eye for inconsistencies.
Charlotte Bourke
You’re editing skills are tip top and if you hadn’t picked up the colour issue we would seriously be in a whole world of horror.
Chris Senior
Sylvia is quite simply an exceptional proofreader and copy-editor. I’ve called on her a number of times over the past four years, and she has always done a fantastic job whatever the project. Her … Read more