Serena Chan


Freelancing Editor


Background


Affiliations



Scribendi Inc. — Freelancing Editor
Mar 2022 – Jun 2024

  • Edit essays, papers, reports, and other works in the sciences, the humanities, medicine, and business, in an all-in-one service encompassing key elements of structural editing, stylistic editing, and copy editing:

  • Correct errors and inconsistencies in spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

  • Correct issues in diction, usage, and style while maintaining voice and tone.

  • Correct or query inconsistencies in logic, facts, and details.

  • Recommend content addition or deletion and the reorganization or recasting of material.

  • Adhere to editorial style guidelines (Chicago) and ISO-certified quality standards.


The Martlet Publishing Society — Volunteer Staff Editor
Nov 2021 – Present

  • Act as a first or second editor in a system that assigns three editors to each article.

  • Edit news, lifestyle, and opinion articles for clarity, coherence, language, and style.

  • Verify sources, citations, and core content for accuracy, fact-checking as necessary.

  • Paraphrase technical information for readability, or rewrite copy for greater engagement.

  • Ensure adherence to journalistic standards.



Academics & Certifications



Bachelor of Science (Honours) ChemistryBusiness Minor
University of Victoria

  • ENGL 303: Copy Editing — Grade: A+ (95%)

  • ENGL 135: Academic Reading and Writing — Grade: A− (82%)


Professional Editing Standards Certificate
Queen's University

Structural Editing | Stylistic Editing | Copy Editing | Proofreading

  • Demonstrated an ability to perform up to the professional editorial standards defined by Editors Canada for structural editing, stylistic editing, copy editing, and proofreading.

  • Gained credit recognized by the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading, UK.



Editing



A List of Non-Confidential Works


Academic | Technical

ACQ Wood Preservative Toxicity.docx — copy editing

Beowulf - A Show of Hands.docx — copy editing

Crowdsourcing for Behavioral Testing.docx — copy editing

Green Hydrogen Production.docx — copy editing

"Tangling and Untangling the Trollopes" — copy editing, introduction only

Thin-Film Black Gold Membranes.docx — copy editing


Journalistic

"Ocean Networks Canada" — stylistic editing, science rewriting

"UVic Students to Blast New-Tech Satellite into Space" — copy editing, science rewriting

"The Unplugging" — stylistic editing


Informative | Expository

Salt Spring Island.docx — copy editing

Speaking Dog.docx — copy editing

Trees.docx — copy editing


Narrative | Descriptive | Literary

I Am a Challenger.docx — narrative essay — structural editing, rewriting

Finding Self-Love.docx — narrative blog post — light copy editing

Fading Scent of the Red Lilies (ch. 1–20) — danmei web fiction — stylistic editing


Editorial | Meta | Other

Proofreading Book Blurbs — an exercise

A Style Sheet made for the first 24 paragraphs of Harlem Chic




Translations



Under Construction




Research


The Gas-Phase Chemistry of ALD Precursor CCTBA


As part of my honours program at the University of Victoria, I conducted research for a project that was a constituent of the McIndoe Group's larger investigation into the gas-phase chemistry of the atomic layer deposition (ALD) precursor cobalt carbonyl tert-butyl acetylene (CCTBA). The aim of my thesis, specifically, was to analyse CCTBA’s rates of synthesis and its ALD-analogous fragmentation pathway, via ESI-MS and MS/MS.

Since CCTBA is neutral and is thus unobservable through mass spectrometry, we made CCTBA analogues out of charge-tagged alkynes that we had designed and synthesised.

Using collision-induced dissociation and MS/MS, we fragmented our charge-tagged CCTBA analogues and tracked the product ions’ relative concentrations over fragmentation intensity and time (i.e., over collision voltage, as seen in the x-axis below).

The brown lines in the graph show that the internal alkyne dissociates from the complex more readily compared to the terminal alkyne. Although further studies will be required in order to fully understand the results, the results suggest that cobalt ALD precursors that have been made with internal alkynes may outperform conventionally made CCTBA.

Although we also attempted to investigate and compare CCTBA’s rates of synthesis using pressurized sample infusion (PSI) and ESI-MS, our collection of high-quality rate data was hindered by the formation of synthetic byproducts within the sample-delivery system.

Future work for this project includes process optimisation for more reliable PSI data as well as computational studies for a better understanding of the experimental results.



Contact


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