Writing - Shirley Henderson

Writing

When I write from scratch for you (copywriting) my job is to get your message across in the clearest way I can. Some customers come to me with a thorough brief. Others come with an idea or a hope.

So, I work around what you’re looking for, and I’ll ask you some questions like:

What do your readers need to know (that can be different from what you want to say!)?
Is there anything that’s likely to confuse potential readers?
Any particular accessibility or sensitive issues?
Is there anything that potential readers are likely to find interesting/helpful/reassuring?
What’s the end product: look and feel?
Do you need me to do some primary research (interview people, desk research, analyse evidence)?
How do you expect to distribute the product/readers to get it?
What’s the budget and timescale?

It means that we’re all clear about the intention and the product before my fingers hit the keys.

You have the final say: after I’ve written the text, I’ll send it to you to amend, approve, sign off and take to the next stage.

“Shirley is so easy to work with and is great at turning heavy, complicated material into key points that are clear and easy to understand. She is a great researcher and writer, and produces high quality, professional material. We always receive great feedback from parents: they find the information accessible and helpful.”
National Parent Forum of Scotland

Examples of writing work

EditingWriting

Monthly e-bulletin for the Scottish Government

Commission, research, edit and write content for the Scottish Government’s Equally Safe bulletin

Writing

National Parent Forum of Scotland parent briefings

Write information for parents about various aspects of Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence; cyber security and STEM skills; and social media

EditingWriting

Scottish Women’s Aid/housing partners: guidance

Write and edit guidance for social landlords on good practice responses to domestic abuse

Close the Gap

Shirley brings knowledge, insight and expertise. She understood exactly what we wanted to capture in the case study and developed a valuable resource for us. She is a pleasure to work with and we look forward to working with her again.

media coop

Working with Shirley is a real pleasure: she hits the ground running with her knack for succinct, clear, accessible writing and deep knowledge of the policy background. Whether writing for the web or print she magically turns a paragraph into a sentence or a sentence into a short phrase, without losing the meaning. Shirley wears her considerable writing skills lightly and is quick and totally reliable. Value for money and lovely to work with!

Parenting across Scotland

It's an absolute pleasure to work with Shirley: She ensures that information is in clear, accessible English that will entice people to read it. Her work is thorough, well organised, meets deadlines and is of a very high quality. Best of all, Shirley will always go that extra mile to make sure that the finished product is top class.

Scottish Government, Equality Unit

Shirley has worked on many projects for the Scottish Government, including producing a monthly electronic bulletin on violence against women issues highly valued by stakeholders; drafting statutory guidance; and a training module on equality impact assessment. She is punctual and highly committed, and can always be relied on to meet deadlines and produce work of a very high standard, in a variety of styles, to suit different audiences.

Community Justice Scotland

Shirley’s service was professional, thorough and friendly. We were impressed with the results and her work gave us reassurance that our work was published to a high standard.

One Parent Families Scotland

Each time we’ve worked with Shirley, we have been impressed with her professionalism and her ability to turn our ideas into accessible and relevant reports that capture what we want to communicate. She takes an interest in the subject, asks great questions, and guides us through the process from start to finish. She has been invaluable in helping us articulate the value of our work and communicate our ambitions for the future.

Scottish Women’s Aid

Shirley has a deep understanding of gender and violence against women, so she hits the road running with every piece of work. And she always delivers. In a sector fraught with short timescales, scarce resources, and tragic stories, she’s the safest pair of hands we know. Her experience and clear analysis of tasks and topics mean that she makes links that add value to reports, research and proposals: links that we are too close to make.

NHS Lanarkshire, Gender-based Violence Services

Friendly, professional and focused, Shirley delivers on time and as agreed. I’ve worked with her on many projects from guidance materials to service evaluations. Her close engagement and the way she works really suit me, as a busy statutory professional. She gets on with the task, and gives just the right kind of updates and feedback to ensure you know your project is on track. At the final stages, her attention to detail ensures nothing is missed.

ECAS

Our old website was very text heavy and not the most accessible from a language perspective. Shirley did a fantastic job of distilling key messages. Her input into finalising the site navigation and preparing a style sheet was also much appreciated. We have received lots of positive feedback on how much easier our new website is to understand.

West Lothian College

Shirley used our new tone of voice guidelines and completely rewrote our content, ensuring every section of our prospectus and all case studies embodied the brand, were accurate and also consistent. She was incredibly easy to work with and flexible which worked well for us. She provided a style sheet so we could see her approach. And this has helped us to ensure consistency in our future work as it led to us changing our approach to writing and proofing content. We have used a number of editors/proofreaders over the years and none have come close to the level of detail and professionalism as Shirley.

Independent consultant

I am impressed by Shirley's skill and ability to take the rawest, thinnest, sketchiest material and turn it into a document that informs, educates and enlightens. Not only that, but she ALWAYS knows where to put the apostrophe!

Blake Stevenson Ltd

Shirley is an excellent researcher, writer and editor. We know that if we contract with her we will always be sure of high quality, thorough, and intelligent work delivered on time and in a professional and friendly manner.

The Graphics Coop

Shirley's a great person to work with. She comes up with the goods as briefed, on time and at a very reasonable price. She's a good sounding board too. We've been working with Shirley for over 25 years now so we should know!

media coop

Shirley is the queen of clarity