Agricultural Fairs and Exhibitions Editing and Proofreading Services

Two hours before judging, an exhibitor is told their heifer is in the wrong class. The date rule is in the prize book, on page forty-one, in a sentence that can be read two ways — and the argument that follows will be conducted in front of the ring, by people who have known each other for thirty years, about a rosette worth eleven dollars and a reputation worth considerably more.

We edit what agricultural societies and exhibition organisers produce — prize books and class schedules, entry conditions and exhibitor rules, livestock and produce class definitions, judging instructions and steward briefings, protest and appeal procedures, health and biosecurity requirements for entries, sponsor and trade stand agreements, safety and site documentation, and the programme and promotional material the public reads. Our editors work on documents that have to hold up in an argument.

The class definition and its entry conditions is the document a whole show rests on, and its failure is a rule that becomes ambiguous only under pressure. A class definition is read casually in February and forensically in August. We work through these so eligibility is expressed in dates and measurable facts rather than in descriptions, since "born in the current year" and "born on or after 1 January" differ by nothing until a January calving; so the qualifying date is given as an actual date with the year, not as a relationship to the show; so every class in a section is checked against its neighbours for animals or entries that fall in both or in neither, because gaps and overlaps are found by exhibitors and never by committees; so the ownership and residency requirements state when they must have been met and what evidence satisfies them; so the health requirements are stated with what document must accompany the animal and who checks it at the gate; so the protest procedure names the time limit, the person to whom a protest is made, the fee and who decides, given that a dispute without a written route becomes a dispute in public; and so the committee's discretion is stated where it exists. Prize books written this way survive the year somebody reads them closely.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including draft rules, committee correspondence and material relating to disputes. We are editors rather than breed specialists, judges or lawyers, and we offer no view on eligibility, judging or any decision of a society. What we can do is make the rules say one thing.