Sporting Goods Editing and Proofreading Services

A helmet is dropped in a car park. It looks fine. It is worn for another two seasons and it is no longer a helmet, because the liner that absorbs an impact does it once. Nothing on the box, the website or the receipt says that. The customer is not careless; they were never told the thing that matters most about what they bought.

We edit what sporting goods retailers and brands produce — safety-critical product information, weight and load limit statements, inspection and replacement guidance, sizing and fit information for protective equipment, care and storage instructions, warning and disclaimer copy, and the guidance given with equipment that will be used unsupervised. Our editors work on products where getting it wrong hurts somebody.

The safety-critical information is the part of sporting goods writing that matters most and is written worst, and its failure is a warning nobody reads placed where nobody looks. A disclaimer protects the seller; an instruction protects the customer. We work through these so the single most important fact about the product is stated in plain language at the top rather than in a warnings block, since a helmet's one-impact liner, a rope's retirement date and a carabiner's loading direction are the facts that decide outcomes; so replacement and retirement are given as conditions and dates rather than as advice, because "inspect regularly and replace if damaged" leaves the judgement with somebody unqualified to make it, and "replace after any impact, even if it looks undamaged, and after five years regardless" does not; so load limits are stated with what they mean in use, given that a kilonewton figure is meaningless and "this will hold a falling adult; it will not hold a car" is not; so the failure mode is described so the customer can recognise the warning signs; so anything that must not be done is stated as a prohibition with the consequence, since a list of cautions is read as legal furniture; so second-hand and inherited equipment is addressed, as this is how most out-of-date safety gear reaches people; so the instruction sits with the product rather than only in a manual that is discarded; and so the writing does not rely on the customer being cautious. Information written this way keeps people safe.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including product data, incident information and supplier material. We are editors rather than safety engineers, standards bodies or equipment specialists, and we offer no view on products, standards, safety or fitness for use. What we can do is put the critical fact where somebody will read it.