Copyediting
Greetings! My name is Scott Isaacs, and I’m the man behind Red Bow Tie Edits—copyeditor, narrator, proofreader, and all-around awesome guy. I’ve worn many hats in my professional career, and they’ve all contributed to who you see today.
I began Red Bow Tie Edits out of a desire to see the English written and spoken word clearly deployed. The red bow tie is a classic American symbol of editorial and academic professionalism. It is a throwback to a more innocent, optimistic time in our nation’s history. Popular culture figures from Indiana Jones to Robert Fulghum have donned the red bow tie. And before becoming a copy editor, I often wore red bow ties as a pronouncer at spelling bees.
Oh yeah...about spelling bees: At the tender age of 14, I won the 1989 Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee. Those fifteen minutes of fame were an indication that I loved exploring the English language. Of course, that single moment of victory did not reveal the many hours I spent studying words, roots, and language patterns that led to it. Nor did my interest in language stop there; in high school, I studied Spanish each year, then majored in Russian at St. Olaf College in Minnesota.
At college, I became interested in natural medicine. After graduation, I completed a doctorate program in the field of naturopathic medicine at the National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, Oregon. Then after four years of drinking from a fire hose, I earned a second doctorate, in chiropractic, at the National University of Health Sciences in suburban Chicago.
After eight years of private practice, my interest in language returned when I became a spelling coach. Over the course of a decade, I coached nearly fifty students with individualized lessons for each. Some hoped to make it to their state bee. Others had their eyes on the national trophy at Scripps. And many of them qualified for the national bee, including top spellers you might have seen during the primetime finals on ESPN. Aside from lessons, I wrote blog posts about spelling and narrated them for my audience. I enjoyed indulging my love of words and was happy to pass that love on to my students.
A few years into coaching, I was approached by a Chinese entrepreneur who wanted to spearhead his own spelling bee program. Overnight, I became the academic director of Spelling Bee of China (SPBCN). And for five years, I edited promotional and academic materials and helped curate word lists. I recorded pronunciations for online apps and pronounced for their national spelling bee in Beijing. I also was the pronouncer and word list manager for the North America Spelling Champion Challenge, a national-level bee sponsored by SPBCN that attracted top spellers from the United States, Canada, and China.
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, I chose to pursue copyediting as a career and enrolled in the copyediting certificate program at UC San Diego. I finished the program in September of 2021. Now, whether editing natural medicine texts, proofreading business promotional materials, or narrating blog posts, I make sure the text that I manage is as clear as possible. Let me work for you!
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Do you need my résumé? It's right here.