1. Establish Project Guidelines
Everyone involved should understand their roles for each project, as well as the team goals. A person may be a combined writer/editor, a writer, or an editor. The four types of editing that should be covered in a project are managerial editing, substantive editing, copyediting, and proofreading.
2. Understand the Types of Editing
Managerial editing: Sometimes called the production editing stage, this type of editing involves the documentation planning and production.
Substantive editing: Sometimes called the developmental editing stage, this type of editing involves information and language editing.
Copyediting: This type of editing involves consistency and accuracy in grammar and the document's format.
Proofreading: This type of editing involves giving everything a final look to make sure there are no inconsistencies or errors.
Note: When editing help documents, online testing and editing is important to ensure proper setup of the document on the computer.
3. Plan Your Editing Tasks
Plan and schedule the editing tasks in the early stages of production. Take into consideration the amount of time needed to complete each task when scheduling editing work. Make sure that when editing, no other tasks are performed. It is not the job of the editor to perform any of the writer's tasks, and it could back up the schedule if other tasks are worked on when they shouldn't be.
4. Develop the Appropriate Editing Forms
Develop and use editing forms to standardize editing practices and ensure efficient communication among multiple editors. Of particular importance is the style sheet (a running list of style decisions that have been made for the current document) and the style guide (a higher-level document that broadly defines the style of the document class or organization). Once these documents have been developed, encourage their use.
5. Conduct Editing Sessions
Sooner or later, you will sit down with the document and begin editing. Find an environment that maximizes your ability to concentrate. For most people, it must be absolutely quiet, with no disruptions. Use an editing checklist to make sure you don't skip any editing tasks--especially important when editing your own writing. Try editing with a partner--two brains are better than one. Also consider working on each task for only a short time. Your attention will be less likely to wander. Use multiple, separate editing techniques, rather than trying to catch everything on the first pass.
DISCUSSION
Editing Graphics
Figures and tables are often the first things a user will look at. The editor must ensure that the figures and tables are appropriate and accurate and that they match the document's style. Avoid cluttering screen shots with arrows and callouts--they distract when overused. Ask yourself, Will this figure help the user understand the information? Is there a better way? Know your audience.
Writing v. Editing
Writing and editing are completely separate tasks. If you are the writer and the editor, try to let the document cool off before you begin editing it. You'll need some distance to make unclouded decisions about your own work. If you are the editor of someone else's work, give them suggestions but avoid researching and writing for them.
Crossing Cultures
If your document will be read by non-native English speakers, try to make it easy on them by using simplified English. Simplified English stresses the active voice, the use of articles, the use of consistent language, and the construction of short, direct sentences. If the document will be globalized, used generic language that will be understandable across cultures. If your document will be localized, use language that is familiar to the culture the document is destined for.
When editing for translations, the rules for simplified English apply. In general, try to make it easy on the translator to render the text into a different language. This is complicated and requires specialized training and practice.
Editing Online Help
Editing online help systems is similar to editing paper documents, but there are some differences. Pay special attention to the index and links because these will be used heavily by the average user. Edit on paper and on screen because it is generally easier to edit on paper, but you need to see how the document works on screen as well. Make sure you have an up-to-date topics list so you can check the completeness of the help system.
Knowing What's Correct
Much of the time, you won't. Consult various authorities to arrive at a consensus opinion, then stick with it. Above all, ensure that your document achieves the document's goals.
Working with Others
1. Be Positive; Don't Be a Pain in the Neck
2. See #1.
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12 comments:
After taking the editing class last semester, I learned several things about editing: 1) editing is time-consuming, 2) editing requires love to detail and 3) the editor is not the writer. With the last point I mean that the editor may guide the writer to clarify some points, but if the writer chooses to keep contents "as is", the editor might have to accept that or the working relationship could be damaged if not ended. Additionally, I discovered that editing skills are skills that improve by practicing for a lengthy period of time.
What I pulled from both this chapter and Campbell's Chapter 8 is:
plan ahead and give yourself lots of time for editing
when editing, try different methods, such as taking words out of context and view documents both online and on paper
play well with others, both writers and editors
break tasks down and tackle them one at a time
Again, Campbell doesn't really address online or visual documentation, but Barker discusses them.
Campbell, Chapter 8 and Barker, Chapter 9 go hand-in-hand to provide a really good summary of the editing process. The levels of editing clearly define the different tasks that can be employed, and keeping them in mind should help an editor stay focused on the proper activity.
I thought this chapter provided a lot of useful, practical information. In particular I appreciated that Barker discussed in detail the differences between paper and online documentation and editing. Having taken a few classes specifically on editing, I appreciated the reiteration of the importance of a good relationship between the writer and editor.
Most of the reviewers thus far have talked about the similarities between Campbell 8 and this chapter from Barker on editing. Both of the chapters provide good information, but I'd like to see more emphasis put on the importance of editing for the visual aspects of the document. It seems to me that if we have a visual design course in the tech comm program, and the fact that visual design is a key factor is usability, the text books could actually devote more information about the process of editing for optimal visual clarity. Barker touches on this topic, but examples of good and bad visuals would really help.
Lance, I completely agree with you. Although I learned an immense amount of information in the Tech. Editing course, I think one of the most important aspects was the information on visual design. On the other hand, Barker describes the process of editing and does offer suggestions that are helpful reminders.
If time isn't a huge issue, I try to use a partner to help edit, particularly detailed information like budget info or grant info.
I find that editing must be performed by a person that you trust. Not everyone can be an editor. The person must be a good speller, know grammar, formatting, and everything that goes into making a good document.
This was an informative chapter - I took the editing course last semester as well, but I don't remember learning the four specific types, so that was beneficial. I mean, I probably saw them, but I didn't figure that there were "types."
I also agree with Robin - if you use someone that you know/trust to edit, I think it's important to make sure that they will be really critical of your work so that it really is the best piece you can produce.
I also took the technical editing course, and I learned that the editing process can be spiral in nature. It will sometimes feel as if the editors are going around in circles, through the same process, before an end is finally met.
What is important to note here is that the process is cautionary. It is better to take up more time and have a polished document than it is to smack the forehead due to noticing errors after the project is complete.
I can give a real-life example of the editing process that was a little more sporadic. I worked on the last issue of the Minnesota English Journal. The project started in August and finished with publication in November. What we did is look at each article in a 200+ book separately, and moved from one to the next. The biggest concern was communication, as we mostly exchanged thoughts through e-mail. As Barker points out, a structured process is most beneficial. Perhaps we could have finished the journal sooner had we been a little more organized?
I must note that I had little control over the editing process other than I edited individual articles on my own time. If I would have run the editing process, I would have probably implemented more of the strategies presented in the editing course and in Barker's chapter.
The Barker chapter 9 on editing reiterates many key concepts of Campbell’s chapter 8. The Barker’s chapter, however gives me more in-depth look on editing and various types of editing.
Another topic that intrigued and interested me in this chapter was editing for cross-cultural readers and editing for translation. I found suggestions on adapting texts for the cultural readers to be constructive, but simplistic. Most organizations write using “globalized language” however there is much more to to cross-cultural adapting than simplification of language. Therefore, the ideal way to write cross culturally would be to use “localized language” which does not happen often due to the lack of time and resources in many organizations.
As to writing for the translation- you are at the mercy of the translator. In my opinion, write using the most standard, textbook English as possible and hope that translator can find the equivalent word in another language. I know many words in Russian that cannot ever be literally translated into English and vice versa and when translated using closest English/Russian version, they loose their core meaning. Word “communication” is one of them. In Russian term communication implies “informal oral interaction”, thus phase “technical communication” would be difficult to translate into Russian language.
I would be interested to hear your comments on cross-cultural technical communication. Thanks.
Like others have said, it's important to plan time into your project for the editing process to take place. In my work place, this isn't usually the case. I found table 9.2 interesting--it estimates the time needed to perform different types of editing. It suggests 1-3 hours per page for copyediting. I was recently given a 40 page document to edit and a list of about 20 things to look for, such as consistency in bullets and font, parallel construction of numbered and bulleted lists, page numbers correct and matching the table of contents... that kind of thing and asked to have it done in two hours. It was an impossible task and I did as much as I was able, but it was frustrating to know that the errors I didn't have time to correct reflected poorly on me, even though I was given inadequate time to do a good job. It can be very frustrating.
Agreeing with many others that have already commented, I felt that this chapter did reverberate the importance of the editing process. Also, I felt it showed the significance of giving ample time in the writing process for editing.
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