1. Chapter 9 Revising, Rewriting, and Editing

2. Revising, Rewriting, and Editing
Improving the content and design of a document by making substantial changes to drafts
Rewriting
Altering a document or piece of text to serve another purpose or audience
Editing
Changing the contents of documents to meet the requirements of corrrectness

3. Revising Concentrates on readability
Ensures that the audience will not be confused or mislead by its information
Considers
Style and word choice
Clarity and concision
Organization and presentation of information
Design and Layout

4. Get an Overview By knowing the purpose of the document
By making sure the purpose is clearly stated
By seeing that the information presented is appropriate to the purpose
By making sure that all of the necessary information is included

5. Trim the Fat By removing information that is just not necessary
By leaving only necessary information

6. Revise for Clarity By using pronouns and modifiers clearly
By unpacking sentences that contain too much information
By clarifying ambiguous statements
By changing punctuation that causes unclear writing

7. Revise for Clarity By compressing sentences By ordering words
By using passive voice and active voice
By eliminating numerous modifying nouns

8. Revise for Concision By cutting empty phrases
Avoiding unnecessary modifiers
Reducing descriptive clauses
Avoiding dummy subjects
Avoiding strings of prepositional phrases
Avoiding nominalizations
Avoiding excessive information

9. Revise for Style Assess your own style Revise short sentences
Revise long sentences
Revise for jargon

10. Revise for Tone By considering the attitude projected in a document
By thinking how readers react to documents
By deciding on a degree of formality and being consistent

11. Revise for Visuals
By considering how visuals might be seen more clearly and efficiently
By placing them appropriately
By positioning them near their textual reference
By insuring they are accurate and readable

12. Question Your Visuals Did I use the right kind of visual?
Would (for instance) a chart instead of a graph better convey the information?
Would a photograph be clearer than a line drawing?
Would a line drawing be more dynamic than clip art?
Would an exploded view be more readable than a one- to-one corresponding diagram?

13. Revise for Timeliness
By checking if other documents have been submitted since you began writing that might affect your document
By seeing if your data is out-dated or still relevant
By checking if other events affected the information you plan to present
By checking if new laws, regulations, or policies have gone into effect since you began writing

14. Rewriting
Makes more substantial changes to documents than occurs during revision
Makes the document into one altogether different from the original in terms of purpose, audience, or even genre
Presents information in new ways to meet the demands of a different rhetorical situation

15. When Rewriting Work from large to small
Consider your audience and purpose
Consider the format
Consider the ethical dimensions

16. Editing Identifies and makes the needed corrections to the document
Often uses a system of marks to identify needed corrections in a document
Should be last and come just before the document is distributed

17. General Areas of Concern
Correct formatting
Correct typography
Grammatical correctness
Correct punctuation
Correct spelling
Correct capitalization
Correct use of abbreviations
Correct electronic addresses
Dobrin / Keller / Weisser : Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century.
© 2008 Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, NJ, All Rights Reserved.

18. When Editing Your Own Work
Put the document aside for as long as possible to lose some familiarity
Read the document backwards to disrupt flow and make errors more evident
Read the document aloud
View the whole page on screen
Print a hard copy to edit

19. When Editing Another’s Work
Do so in a professional manner
Do so in a timely manner
Be sure your advice is applicable to the document
Ask the author to clarify how you should read the document
Use proofreader’s symbols
Discuss your suggestions with the author

20. Use Technology To Move and remove text Insert visuals and characters
Use language tools
Design a document