Bowling Centres Editing and Proofreading Services

A bowler averaging 142 beats a bowler averaging 198 and takes the points. Everybody involved knows this is how a handicap league works and roughly nobody can explain the arithmetic, which means that twice a season somebody is convinced they have been short-changed and the league secretary spends an evening proving otherwise.

We edit what bowling centres and leagues produce — league rules and handicap systems, entry and membership information, tournament formats and prize structures, lane conditions and equipment policies, birthday and group booking information, pricing and offer material, staff procedures, and the notices that explain a rule change to a room full of people who liked the old one. Our editors work on documents that have to survive a Tuesday night league.

The handicap explanation is what keeps a league together, and its failure is a rule that states the formula without showing what it does. A system nobody can compute is a system somebody will always suspect. We work through these so the calculation is set out with a worked example using real numbers, since a rule reading "80% of the difference between the bowler's average and 220" is arithmetic that most members will not do; so the base and the percentage are stated with why they were chosen, because these two numbers determine whether the league favours the strong or the weak bowler and members are entitled to know which; so the establishment rule is given — how many games set an average, what happens to a new bowler, and when the average is recalculated — as this is where every dispute actually begins; so the treatment of an absent bowler and a substitute is written, given that the blind score and the substitute's handicap are the two most argued-about lines in any league book; so the re-rating rule for a bowler improving mid-season is stated with the trigger, since a sandbagging accusation is the fastest way to lose a team; so the standings show the handicap applied rather than only the result; so any change takes effect at the start of a season and not during one; and so the rule book fits on two sides. Rules written this way keep teams entering year after year.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including league documents, member data and business material. We are editors rather than league officials or governing bodies, and we offer no view on formats, handicaps or any decision. What we can do is make the system explicable to the person losing by four pins.