Dear Dr. Davies: My favourite animals are dogs. My bid is for two hours, at the rate you mentioned in your project description; the minimum bid is $30, so the interface will not allow me to bid $25. Thank you for your project posting at Freelancer.com (capitalised because it's a trademark). To demonstrate my proofreading ability, I have a few comments about your project description. A number of difficult tests would be plural. Regular work and good pay would be listed as regular work and good pay; or regular work, and good pay; or possibly regular work with good pay; or even regular work, with good pay. Curiously, you used the US spelling of "favorite" (which would be italicised instead of quoted if that were possible in the interface) although you are in the UK. Unless you intend to say that your (no, that doesn't need an apostrophe or another letter, and the possessive case is accurate) not working with someone will cause their work to be of a poor standard, you might like to use a comma before the phrase "because we won't work with you" in the sentence "You will be wasting your time if your work is of a poor standard [sic] because we won't work with you." You "accept no errors whatsoever, either within [a person's] application or within the tests." Perhaps you "accept no errors whatsoever within [a person's] application or within the tests." You might even "accept no errors whatsoever within [a person's] application or test answers." It's even possible that you "accept no errors whatsoever, either within [a person's] application or within the tests." One last possibility is that you "accept no errors whatsoever: not within [a person's] application or the tests." The original wording requires a colon, not a comma. I wrote a discourse proofreading the other bidders' posts as well; it was so long (over 5,000 characters) that the interface will not allow me to post it. I will try to summarise. Several bidders didn't state their favourite animal; one stated it at the end of their bid instead of in the first line. Several people did not use any space after a period: one or two spaces are acceptable; however, I noticed that you used one space after a period, so I'm taking that cue. A list was introduced without a colon, and without commas between list items. Someone wanted you to know their reviews instead of seeing the reviews or knowing more about them. Several sentences did not end with a period; one ended with a comma! One person who was critical of your errors made a couple of her own: she omitted a comma after "Yes" and used the nominative case of a noun ("you finding"), instead of the possessive case ("your finding"), before a gerund. A couple of bidders used too many conjunctions in lists; one left out the conjunction where it was needed. One used excessive periods: an ellipsis has three periods and is sometimes followed by a period at the end of the sentence, but there should not be five or six periods together (except maybe in a Table of Contents, leading across the page to the page number). "Portfolio" is one word, not two. A couple of people left out the comma before the word "and" when combining two complete sentences. Someone said "a three years". In British style (logical quotation), that period belongs outside the quotes because it does not appear in the original. Someone loves the Komodo dragon but doesn't know how to spell or capitalise "Komodo dragon". A misplaced apostrophe indicates that someone has been reading & assessing the same (single) student's work for years instead of reading & assessing [a group of] students' work. Someone capitalised both words in "Australorp Chicken"; "chicken" should not be capitalised. One person spoke in three sentence fragments. All of this should be separated into paragraphs, but the interface doesn't allow paragraphs. Sincerely, Charlene Wright. That period would not follow my name in a standard letter format; however, I have included it because I am forced to write all of this in one paragraph.
