Jo Carr
Academic, Corporate and Creative Online Editing
Jo Carr
Le Mot Juste
Jo Carr (PhD)
Le Mot Juste (‘the exact word’) offers a prompt, confidential on-line editing service. I’ve borrowed the name from Gustave Flaubert, the 19th century French novelist.
He was the first writer to take language really really seriously; arguing for and demonstrating its importance in its own right rather than as the vehicle for expressing ideas or conveying messages.
His famously painful, laborious and ultimately hugely successful pursuit of le mot juste – and he could spend three weeks crafting what would end up as a single page of manuscript – illustrates beautifully the power of language.
Language that delivers exactly, truthfully and memorably the writer’s intended meaning or representation.
He showed how writing makes rather than conveys meaning. For a text to achieve its purpose, the language has to be exactly right. This rightness of fit is hard won.
I’ve worked with language all my professional life. As a radio journalist, as an editor in an international publishing house, as an academic in an Australian university.
I’ve published my own work, mentored colleagues in writing for publication, served on editorial boards and supervised, mentored and examined postgraduate students working at Masters and Doctoral levels, many writing in English as a second or additional language.
I’ve contributed to various curriculum development projects at state and national levels, as writer, advisor and editor. Writing – and editing others’ writing – has been a major element of my working life.
I enjoy working with all kinds of different texts. If you’re wanting support with academic, corporate, personal or imaginative writing, I’m interested to hear from you.
You may identify with one of the following categories of writer; or you may need a quite different category of your own.
Manuscript of a page of A Simple Heart, published by Flaubert in 1877
My services
Corporate & Commercial
Whether you’re a CEO or Management Team of a large enterprise or a small business owner/operator, effective communication is a core component of your job description.
You have reports to write, keynotes and presentations to deliver, in-house communiques to circulate, projections and assessments to produce, success stories to share, and client interest to engage. And language sits squarely inside all of this.
I can help you get the pitch and tone right, word your message clearly and efficiently; and get the all-important balance between style and substance.
Students
Support is offered for undergraduate and postgraduate student writing, for example final proof reading and technical edit before submission of assignments, dissertations, discussion papers, presentations or research proposals.
Second-language
Writing in a second/additional language presents huge challenges. Editing support is offered to achieve the fluency, grammatical accuracy and stylistic expression characteristic of first-language writers.
Personal
The accurate and expressive use of language is equally important in the personal and creative world. I can help with all kinds of personal writing: Blogs, memoirs, social media posts, speeches, letters to Editors, wedding vows, eulogies. We can talk about context, occasion, personality; and get the tone, voice and expression just right.