technical editing for beginners final
Post on 21-Jan-2018
180 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
B E T H A N Y B O W L E S
Technical Editing for Beginners
What is Technical Editing?
“Technical editing is the editing of scientific, engineering, medical, or other complex documents for both language and content issues. The language aspect covers traditional copyediting and production editing concerns; the content aspect involves substantive editing to address the accuracy and completeness of the technical information and to ensure that it is intelligible to the intended audience.”-STC Technical Editing SIG Wiki
What Does it Take to be a Technical Editor?
“The art and skill of editing require specialized knowledge of the use of language and the methods by which we make sense of information” -Carolyn Rude, The Longman Guide to Technical Editing (4)
Tools Knowledge of:
Style guides
Dictionaries
Checklists or style sheets
Editing markup system
Desktop publishing tools
English language
Typographic & layout
Editing types & levels
Editorial commenting
Time management
What Do You Need to be a Technical Editor?
Style Manuals
Chicago Manual of Style
Modern Language Association (MLA) Style Manual
American Psychological Association (APA) Style Manual
Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications
The Elements of Style
Levels of Edits
Content-Focus Levels of Edit from Nadziejka
Rush Edit Not enough time for a complete edit Emphasis on comprehension Selection of editing tasks within the limited amount of time Three types of tasks to be completed in order, and as time allows:
Technical content considerations Policy considerations Copy editing considerations
Standard Edit Plenty of time to do a complete edit Complete editing of the document Includes all of the editing tasks in a Rush Edit, but in the order of the editor’s choosing:
Technical content considerations Style considerations Language considerations Integrity considerations Policy considerations
Revision Edit More time-intensive edit Bringing several authors together Document is not nearing completion, is not yet ready for a Standard Edit Involves reorganization and major revisions to document
Rude’s Types of Editing
Copy Edit
Comprehensive Edit
Mechanics of Editing
Colons, semicolons, and commas
Hyphens and dashes
Parentheses and brackets
List structure and usage
Subject/verb agreement
Dangling and misplaced modifiers
Noun strings
Active/passive voice
Parallelism
Types of Errors
Grammatical mistakes
Misspellings or typos
Incorrect punctuation
Inconsistent usage
Ambiguous technical information
Wrong scientific terms
Wrong units and dimensions
Inconsistent significant figures
Improper data or chart presentation
Citation errors
Copyediting
Markup of language: Grammar
Punctuation
Style
Focusing at word-level and sentence-level
Rules-based
Can do a copy edit separate from a comprehensive edit
Focus more on these quality characteristics: Clarity
Style
Visual Effectiveness
Basic Steps for Copyediting
1. Gather information about the project.
2. Survey the document overall.
3. Run spell checker and/or grammar checker.
4. Edit paragraphs and headings for:1. Correctness
2. Consistency
3. Accuracy.
5. Edit illustrations, equations, reference list, table of contents, front matter, and back matter.
6. Prepare the document for production.
Proofreaders’ Marks
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_proof.html
Activity
“This section by Wiliams and Abbott’s was particularly helpful for me since I never used a descriptive bibliography in research before. Prior to reading this I found the term “descriptive” ironically so vague that I was not even sure what it means (160). Having the list of things a descriptive bibliography does clarified it’s purpose and points of interest. The reader almost didn’t know any of these: identification, titles pages and imprints, collation contents, typography and paper, binding, and bibliographic history.”
Also Known As:
Analyze the purpose of the document
Understand the readers and their tasks
Anticipates readers’ needs Focus on:
Content Organization Visual design Overall style
Comprehensive editing precedes copy editing
Substantive editing
Development editing
Macro editing
Analysis-based editing
Comprehensive Editing
Basic Steps for Comprehensive Editing
1. Analyze the purpose, readers, and uses for the document.
2. Evaluate the content, organization, visual design, style, and reader accommodations.
3. Establish editing objectives and document them in a specific plan for editing.
4. Review the plan with the writer, and work toward consensus on changes to make.
Microsoft Word Adobe Acrobat
How to Track Edits
Questions?
top related