Cindy Lou Duden

Certified Proofreader Overview

Even though I have a degree in electrical engineering, I focused on documentation for most of my engineering career.  Throughout my career, from my first job to retirement, I developed technical assessments of hardware, as well as test plans, procedures, and reports. I initially worked for Department of Defense contractors supporting the government on system engineering contracts. Almost all these contracts provided support for the Air Force space program offices. I wrote an end-of-life technical assessment of space ground terminals and a test plan, procedures, and report for legacy GPS receivers. I was part of a team that developed operational requirement documentation used to procure additional space assets.  Another team I supported developed test plans, procedures, and reports for ground control software for the Air Force GPS program office.  At that time, the Air Force had its own style guide, which I followed. Unfortunately, I do not know which, if any, professional style guide it was based on.

 After I transitioned to the United States government as an Air Force GG14 engineer, I developed documentation or oversaw contractor development of documentation, including technical assessments of space systems, operational requirement documentation, and a technical assessment of ground systems timing requirements across three ground sites.  The technical assessment the contractor provided had to be detailed, exact, thorough, and professionally written. I was particularly concerned when a contractor would deliver a draft featuring inconsistent formatting, mixed voice usage, misspellings, and poor structure.

 Even though I recently completed a proofreader’s course and received a certificate, my entire engineering career was focused on writing documentation or overseeing the development of documentation. I will approach proofreading all documents with the same due diligence I applied as a government contractor and a systems engineer.