Editing Techniques 1.The known 2.The ideal 3.The practical

1. The Known  What techniques have helped you?

1. The Known  What techniques have helped you?  What works for you or me may not work for someone else

1. The Known  What techniques have helped you?  What works for you or me may not work for someone else  Stick with what you already know works well

2. The Ideal  We all have unique audiences and come from fields with unique expectations  We also all go about writing in a way that best suits our previous experience and strengths  I can’t really tell you exactly what to do or how do it best for your circumstance because I don’t know your audience

2. The Ideal  One piece of advice that tends to apply in almost any situation… Know your audience  Vague advice, I know  You will predominantly have to figure this out by yourself  Best editing practices in one situation may not work the same way or as well in another  Ask the right questions beforehand that will help you know your audience’s priorities  Be flexible

2. The Ideal  Best practice (but hard to manage):  Listen to or observe a representative audience member read your work aloud and watch their reactions to it (this is called “concurrent think-aloud protocol”)  No matter how good of an editor you think you are, you never really know how the audience will react  (…unless you know your audience really well, but even then…)

3. The Practical  Create a checklist or heuristic  Outline best practices for your particular audience and situation  Helps you avoid forgetting important components or phases of the editing process.  Checklist helps you focus on one issue at a time  Multitasking kills productivity

Sample Editing Checklist/Heuristic* 1.Is my paper usable? 2.Is any of my content distracted from the purpose of this paper, this chapter, this section, this paragraph? 3.Have I provided sufficient citations and reasoning to support all of my approaches, methods, and assertions? 4.Does it flow? 5.Is my style, grammar, and punctuation appropriate? 6.Is my formatting consistent with itself, and consistent with expected academic style? *See handout

3. Practical  Read your work aloud to yourself 1-3 times before you turn it in

Conclusion  Any more good ideas?  Any questions?