Chandra Clarke
Founder and president: Scribendi.com

There are those of us for whom even the smallest grammatical error is offensive. Editor and former freelance journalist Chandra Clarke was able to turn her frustration over agreement errors and misplaced commas into a successful online business. After finding countless errors in newspaper articles and press releases, Clarke made it her mission to preserve what is left of the English language. In 1997, she launched Scribendi.com, an editing and proofreading service that has since become a world leader in the online editing industry.

Clarke’s professional background is in journalism and photography. As a teenager, she worked on the staff of her high school newspaper before taking a part-time job with her local paper in Thamesville, Ontario. While completing her undergraduate studies at Athabasca University, Clarke was promoted to managing editor of a small weekly paper, but the job only left her wanting more. She was responsible for producing a good finished product but ultimately had no decision-making authority over any part of the process. After finishing her degree, Clarke decided to strike out on her own.

She took a number of editing jobs, but found that for every spelling or grammatical error she corrected, there were ten more equally atrocious ones. After reviewing hundreds of press releases each week, all of them riddled with errors, Clarke realized there was a market for a fast, professional editing service. She envisioned a kind of service that would streamline the editing process for writers, editors, and publishers.

A few years later, she launched Scribendi.com from her kitchen table. Since she couldn’t afford to hire staff members, Clarke initially served as Scribendi’s editor, bookkeeper, and programmer. Business took off, and in 2003 she and her husband incorporated the company.

Today, Scribendi.com is a global leader in the online editing and proofreading industry. The company employs more than 100 editors to review everything from PhD dissertations to press releases to multi-million dollar budget proposals. Since the site operates 24 hours a day, Scribendi’s editors are available even for the procrastinators among us.

A large part of Scribendi’s success is due to its efficiency; the company’s editors can proofread more than 1.5 million words per week, 52 weeks a year. While creating her vision for the company, Clarke knew she could utilize the internet and advanced programming software to deliver editing services more quickly and easily than ever before. Thanks to a unique workflow management system, Scribendi’s staff members can accept a digital document, assign that document to an available editor, and deliver the reviewed product to the client in a matter of hours.

But Clarke sees Scribendi as more than just a quick editing service. “Scribendi started as a way to help people,” she explains. “When one of our editors reviews an admissions essay, we help someone get into the school of their dreams. To say that this has a profound impact on that person’s career path and even their personal life—who they end up meeting, befriending, or marrying—is no exaggeration. The same is true for authors, academics, and business people; we are constantly helping writers reach their highest potential, and nothing could be more satisfying.”

In many ways, Scribendi has also become a family affair for Clarke. She launched the site from her kitchen table, and even now, she continues to work and edit from home. Her husband, Terence, is the company’s vice president, and the two split their management duties 50/50. This leaves time for both their business and their three sons. In an effort to keep their site current and user-friendly, Chandra and Terence worked together to relaunch an updated version of Scribendi in late August.

Chandra Clarke may have created Scribendi.com out of frustration, but she now draws her inspiration from helping students, potential academics, and even CEOs present well-written papers and documents. While she may still fear for the future of the English language, Clarke now gains a sense of accomplishment from her work. For creating an efficient, user-friendly online editing company, and thereby encouraging all of us to revisit the rules of English grammar, Clarke is this month’s Woman on Top.