About the Editor

My name is Dr Rachel Finnegan. I am a professional proofreader and copy-editor with extensive experience in academic editing and editorial training. I specialise in copy-editing and proofreading academic documents and art books. My academic background is in the classics. After completing my studies in Ireland and Greece, I worked for 23 years in the Irish higher education system. I was an administrative officer at the Royal Irish Academy (1992–1995) and a lecturer in Arts & Heritage Management at Waterford Institute of Technology (now SETU) (1995–2014). During the latter position, I was Head of Creative & Performing Arts for three years (2006–2009).

In late 2014, I took early retirement from my lecturing position and retrained as a proofreader and editor. At the start of 2015, I established Irish Academic Editing.

I have a special interest in editorial training and from September 2016-2022 I was a tutor for an online Diploma in Proofreading and Editing (College of Media and Publishing, UK).

Academic qualifications

• BA (Hons) in Classics, Trinity College Dublin (1986)
• PhD in Classics, Maynooth University (1991)
• Certificate in Irish Archaeology, University College Cork (1995)

Professional qualifications/training

Since my career change in 2015, I have completed the following professional training courses:

• Diploma in Proofreading and Editing (Distinction), College of Media and Publishing, UK, 2015
• References, SfEP (now CIEP), UK, 2016
• Progress in Editorial Skills, Publishing Training Centre, UK, 2017
• Proofreading Theses and Dissertations, SfEP (now CIEP), UK, 2018
• Rewriting and Substantive Editing (Non-Fiction) Publishing Training Centre, UK, 2018
• Writing Plain Language, Plain Language Commission, UK, 2019
• Diploma in Webediting (Distinction), College of Media and Publishing, UK, 2019

Professional and academic affiliations

• Full Member of the Association of Freelance Editors, Proofreaders and Indexers of Ireland (AFEPI) (since 2015)
• Member of the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE)
• Member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (RSAI)

Skills

• Proofreading
• Copy-editing
• Substantive editing
• Academic writing

My publications

I am the author/editor of eight academic books.

The first was an adaptation of my doctoral dissertation, Women in Aristophanic Comedy, published by Adolf M. Hakkert (1995).

The second was a new edition of an eighteenth-century travel account of Ireland, published by UCD Press (2008).

Between 2011 and 2013, I published a series of three eighteenth-century eastern travel letters through my own publishing house, Pococke Press.

In 2019 and 2021, I published two books with Brill:

• English Explorers in the East
• A new, revised edition of Richard Pococke's Letters From the East (1737-1740)

In 2022, I was the lead researcher and author of The Life and Works of Robert Wood, published by Archaeopress.

I have also written numerous articles for publication in peer-reviewed journals.

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