Terri Palmer, PhD

I am a professional writer living in Toronto, Ontario. I hold a PhD in rhetoric from Carnegie Mellon University and I specialize in science and health writing. I am available to edit, write or consult on professional documents. My rates and services are detailed on my services page. You can get a better sense of my abilities by looking at either my résumé or my online portfolio.

If you are looking for a Terri Palmer and are not sure that I am the one you want, take a look at my “about me” page.

Links to external pages open in new frames. You can get in touch with me using the links in the left panel. This page was last revised September 2014.

Résumé

You can download a nicer .pdf version of my résumé here.

Career objective
To present technical information clearly to both expert and non-specialist audiences and to streamline and standardize the writing process within organizations

Summary of qualifications

15 years’ experience writing, editing and teaching writing
PhD in rhetoric/English and BS in mathematics
Exhaustive knowledge of English grammar and style, including CP Style
Follower of industry and academic research in writing
Fluent in document design and document design software
Commitment to clear and ethical communication

Skills and experience
Writing and research

Wrote business letters, research reports, proposals, manuals, promotional materials, résumés, fundraising materials, “bad news” letters, press releases and press kits, surveys and questionnaires, formal presentations, brochures and scripts
Researched report and proposal materials for clients
Performed academic research in the persuasive use of language
Edited short and medium-length documents for grammar, style, consistency and conformity with genre standards
Performed substantive editing on longer documents
Interviewed subject matter experts to produce readable technical documents

Teaching and training

Taught university-level business writing, corporate communications, grammar and style, image management, and rhetoric
Managed 400-student program in professional writing
Co-taught mini-seminars in introductory HTML and writing software
Developed numerous courses and syllabi
Wrote teaching materials and sample documents for class use
Served on numerous committees overseeing inter- and intra-departmental educational policy

Document design and digital experience

Designed documents and presentations in Adobe InDesign, Microsoft Word and PowerPoint
Created and edited graphics in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop
Wrote and edited HTML, CSS and PHP, both by hand and in Adobe Dreamweaver
Maintained company social media presence on Facebook and Twitter using Hootsuite
Designed personal and departmental webpages
Maintained departmental website and FTP server

Work experience

Freelance writer: 2010–present
Various private and charitable organizations, Toronto, ON

Assistant professor: 2003–2010
York University, Toronto, ON

Teaching associate and web administrator: 1993–2003
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Partial list of clientele

Council of Agencies Serving South Asians (CASSA)
Canadian Diabetes Association
Hospice Palliative Care Ontario
Ontario Health Coalition
Canadian Space Society

Education
PhD, rhetoric
Carnegie Mellon University

BA, English and BS, mathematics
The Ohio State University

Digital publishing foundation certificate
George Brown College

Further training

Social media courses:Social Media Marketing; Social Media Metrics, Analytics, and Marketing Tools
Programming courses: Introduction to JavaScript and jQuery

About me

I grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and went to Columbus Alternative High School. I attended the Ohio State University and concurrently earned a BA in English and a BS in math. I then spent a year in Portland, Oregon, before being admitted directly into the PhD program in rhetoric at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I took a job as an assistant professor in the professional writing program at York University in Toronto, Ontario, in 2003 as an ABD and defended my dissertation in 2005. I am now a permanent resident of Canada and a freelance professional writer.

My dissertation concerned the history of the term “probability” in rhetoric, the early history of probability mathematics, and the apparent references in early probability mathematics to the same concepts of probability as were used in rhetoric.

Personal interests

I volunteer at the Toronto Humane Society as a cat socializer and, in season, as a kitten-feeder. I have volunteered at the THS for over six years and have three cats from the THS.

I am semi-vegetarian, by which I mean I eat some seafood but otherwise am a strict vegetarian, though not vegan. If you want to try vegetarian places in Toronto, I recommend Fresh, Live, Kale, Urban Herbivore, and the café at the Big Carrot.

I take classes at George Brown College. I have taken classes there in Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, typography, page design, social media marketing and metrics, JavaScript and drawing.

I also read a lot. I read a lot of non-fiction, such as Eric Hobsbawm's The Age of Revolution: Europe: 1789–1848. I generally like science writing and history, as well as works of investigative journalism that verge on ethnography, such as books about over-reliance on personality testing or about the 2008 financial meltdown.

Rhetoric

Rhetoric, my field of study, is the art of persuasion. Nowadays people usually assume “rhetoric” means lying or tricking people, but that is not what a good rhetorician does. While it’s common We assume rhetoric means lying because we believe that facts speak for themselves and that you do not need to present the truth carefully, but that is not so; a health-care or environmental policy may truly be the best in every reasonable way, and yet people may not understand the policy, may not believe the facts surrounding it, may have unanswered concerns, may be more concerned with irrational objections, or may simply not care enough to listen in the first place. More often we encounter problems for which there is no one best solution, and must decide upon courses of action based on competing benefits, costs, and moral values. While in some areas, we can readily agree on the best solutions, in human affairs we often cannot quickly decide, and that is where rhetoric comes in: in explaining difficult concepts, in showing the validity of the evidence, in framing the issues according to our audience’s interests, in dispelling misconceptions, in making a seemingly dull issue interesting, and in weighing different costs and benefits against one another.

Portfolio

Below I have linked to some writing samples. I have included a brief note with each, describing the type of writing as well as the circumstances of and audience for each piece. Samples are in .pdf.

Résumé editing: original and edited version
Job letter editing: original and edited version
These are the originals and edited versions of a job letter and résumé for a recent graduate in engineering. I improved the layout and copy of the résumé, and extensively reworked the job letter, with input from its author. The author did indeed get the job he applied for.

“Bad news” assignment sheet
“Bad news” letter guidelines
Sample “bad news” letter
This was an exercise I gave my students at York in delivering bad news politely and professionally.

“Asteroid Mississauga is One in Half a Million”
I wrote this for the Canadian Space Gazette, the newsletter of the Canadian Space Society, in early 2011.

Oral presentation tips
I wrote this handout for professional writing students at York and CMU to help them give oral presentations effectively.

“On being not (exactly) in error”
I wrote this in 2004 for a Danish university association of English students. It is about people’s obsessions with grammatical errors and how many so-called rules are at best guidelines, and how easy it is to get carried away.

“The Iconography of Rhetoric”
I wrote this in 2011 for a class in InDesign. It describes some of the history of rhetoric and two common images traditionally associated with the formal use of rhetoric.

Request for renewed donations
Honorarium thank-you card designed for local office printing
Holiday letter requesting donations
These are fundraising letters and cards I wrote for Hospice Palliative Care Ontario in 2013.

I also have a few more samples that my clients requested I not post publicly, but which they have agreed to let me use as samples. I can email these samples to you upon request.

If you would like to see a sample of my academic research, I can send you a chapter of my dissertation, which concerned the history of the term “probability” in rhetoric, the early history of probability mathematics, and the apparent references in early probability mathematics to the same concepts of probability as were used in rhetoric.

Services

I will edit most documents and will write many. I will not write academic papers, though I will edit them and give advice about content, research, format, grammar and style. I am available for consultation for most writing projects and for tutoring.

Résumé writing and editing, including individual consultation $75/hr

One-on-one academic paper advice and editing $60/hr

Academic paper editing without one-on-one consultation $45/hr

Most written copy, without edits $1/word

Edits for copy, either my own or others’ $50/hour

If you’re curious about these rates, please see the Professional Writers Association of Canada’s suggested rates page.