After you create your account, send me an e-mail with your text attached as a Microsoft Word file. Describe how much editing you think it needs, specify a deadline and mention anything you consider relevant. I offer new clients up to 150 words free (in one single unit of text); if your first submission to me is longer, I'll apply a 150-word credit on your first invoice.

Upon receipt of your e-mail, I obtain the number of words in your text with Microsoft Word's Word Count tool. This number is the source of my charge to you, so I e-mail an invoice to you immediately (see Calculating the Cost). If I think your text seems seriously mismatched to the service you've requested, I'll let you know at this time, too.

You make your payment by bank account or credit card to SharperMessage™ by means of the link to PayPal® in your invoice. PayPal® is the most recognized and respected payment method available worldwide for goods and services purchased on the Internet. It's private, secure and free for you—whether you have your own account or not.

Finally, I finish your order and e-mail the file back to you before your deadline. If receiving your work back by e-mail is impossible because of privacy or security concerns, I can arrange for you to download your file(s) from this website using the password you choose when you register.

Unless you direct me to do otherwise, I use Microsoft Word's change tracking feature to add comments and make my edits stand apart from your original material. By displaying added text as underscored (in color) and deleted text as struck through (in color), change tracking allows you to navigate among the edits quickly and process them (by "accepting""rejecting") individually or all at once. (The version I use, Word 2002, permits additions or deletions to appear in balloons in the page margin along with comments or questions. See the examples below.) or

Change tracking enables you easily to review, and then accept or reject, my editing proposals one after another. When my work is limited to proofreading, you should "accept all" changes after reviewing them. (They're necessary, after all, and I will have used the change tracking feature only so you can see what I've done.) If I edit your work to some degree, too, then I make proofreading corrections directly in your text—that is, without using change tracking—and employ change tracking only for the edits that I suggest you incorporate.

In each of these sample documents, the first page is prior to any editing, the second page shows the same text with my edits and comments displayed with Microsoft Word's change tracking, and the last page shows all proposed changes incorporated into the text automatically.

If you're not a Microsoft Word user, or you don't wish to use its Track Changes feature as I've described, I'll try to accommodate whatever alternative arrangement you'd prefer.