Chapter 10 Editing, Revising, and Evaluating Technical Communication: Strategies for College and the Workplace by Dan Jones & Karen Lane Chapter 10 Editing, Revising, and Evaluating Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

Editing Methods

Page-By-Page Editing Work sequentially through the document Make changes as you encounter each element Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

Bottom-up Editing Edit one sentence at a time Then edit a paragraph at a time Finally, edit a section at a time Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

Top-Down Editing Work on overall organization, design, and content Move to problems within each section Then work on individual paragraphs Finally, polish sentences and words Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

The Four Phases of Editing

1. Developmental Editing . . . uncovers fundamental weaknesses in arrangement organization premise begins with planning Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

2. Substantive Editing . . . checks content checks meaning occurs after each successive draft of a document Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

3. Copyediting . . . checks grammar and punctuation occurs after developmental and substantive editing Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

4. Proofreading . . . verifies that text has been printed according to your requirements occurs at the end of the publication process Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

Revising

Revision occurs when . . . stylistic changes are made grammatical changes are made any other changes are made to the document Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

Revising Your Work After you finish the draft, leave it alone for a day or two Revise on paper rather than online for early drafts of print documents Be sure you have followed your outline or storyboard — continued — Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

Revising Your Work Ensure that you have included an appropriate level of detail Ensure that paragraphs are organized logically Review for completeness — continued — Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

Revising Your Work Eliminate redundancy Verify that illustrations are placed appropriately Add non-text items to support your text Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

Revising to Improve Style

Check for . . . accuracy and precision appropriateness conciseness concreteness — continued — Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

Check for . . . consistency clarity sincerity sentence parallelism — continued — Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

Eliminate . . . unnecessary words or phrases redundancies circumlocutions prepositional phrases longer than two words negative constructions — continued — Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

Eliminate . . . verb phrases noun phrases expletive constructions Gobbledygook Telegraphic writing — continued — Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

Reviewing and Evaluating Drafts

Reviewing . . . occurs when you submit your document to someone else for critique Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

Evaluation . . . occurs when you or someone else tests the appropriateness or usability of what you have created Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

The Style Review . . . checks for effective prose and conformity to “house style” Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

Peer Review . . . is a review by at least one other person familiar with the assignment or subject Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

The Large Project Review . . . may call for many phases of review by various departments within an organization Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.

Usability Testing . . . determines the quality of a product or service and leads to its improvement Copyright © 2002 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman Publishers. All rights reserved.