Writing / Editing Projects
Substantive Edits for a client's training manual (team)
The Final Document
The Original Document (Sections 1-3)
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The Assignment:
I served as part of an editorial team that completed this document. Our task was to perform substantive edits with the client's original training materials such as improving the language and style, updating the design and graphics, and combining all of the separate modules into one document. My Contributions: My primary role was to edit the content for the first three sections: “Preparation to Teach,” “Course Introduction,” and “Module 1: Building Rapport.” This job included several tasks:
I also performed more comprehensive editing duties for the entire manual, all of which are outlined below.
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A chapter from a collaborative style manual and a style sheet (team & individual)
The chapter I wrote
The style sheet I researched and designed with the other editors...
The Sample Page and template I created to match the specifications of the style sheet...
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The Assignment:
The class was tasked with producing a style manual for the needs of UCF student/staff/professional technical communicators. The objective was to write and organize the manual so readers can easily locate and understand the value of the information they need to produce well-organized written documents. The final document included sections on grammar, punctuation, usage, oral rhetoric, information fluency, documentation, research and library skills, document design, electronic documentation, and a description of the rhetorical genres that are employed by today's technical communicators. The final manual is 175-200 pages including front matter, back matter, bibliography, table of contents, etc. While some of the writing was done collaboratively, I researched and wrote all of the material for the chapter posted here. Additionally, I served as a team lead for my group as well as a general editor for the entire manual. My Contributions:
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A comprehensive editing assignment (individual)
The Final Document
The Original Text (reproduced exactly as presented)
Succeeding A myriad of support services are available at the school, some provided by the administration and others sponsored by goverment funded agencies or nonprofit oranizations. We want to help meet you’re needs, whether they are academic or personnel in nature, so that your experience at college will be invigorating and a challenge. On—Campus Academic Serivces The Library offers a broad array of sophisticated research ideas in a confortable, friendly environment With its holdings nationally recognized for strenghts in the biology and physical sciences, and technology, the school library collections total more than four million itemsincluding 1.9 million books and bound seriels, 2.5M mircroforms, 125 thousand maps and extensive holdings of manuscripts, films, government pubs, archival and audio-visual materials. There is still more that makes the Library an invaluable source and a precious stock of information and facts: 1. ACCESS, the Librarys online information system provides access to the local on-line catalog [ICATs], which contains records for 80‰ of the book collection &all catalouged seriels, as well as selected indexing and abstracting data bases. Access is accesible on campus through the campus network or 0ff-campus through the Internet, or by dail-up access from a personal computer with a MODEM and communcations software. 2. The library’s reference services provide access to more then eight hundred different online databases containing information. Numerous online indexing and abstracting services are also available through computer CD-ROM workstations and through commercial services. 3. Branch facilities within the library system include the Law and Med library and four reading rooms in the field of dentistry, physical sciences, and business. Fig 1. 4. The Library Media Center is uniquely designed for a wide variety of course-related media materials. Housing fewer than eighty eight multimedia study corrals and 22 audio stations, the center offers both direct play back and remote broadcasting capability. 5 A collection of 2,OOO journal titles and other journals offers major emphasis in the arts. 6 The Interlibrary Loan office provides access to a National network of libraries and commercial document suppliers. Loans and photocopy are also sent and recieved on an international basis. The department is at the back of the library (across from the men’s room.). Interlibary loan processes 10,00 requests and 50,000 lending requests. 7 The Special Collections Dept. rare books and is the home of several national archives.. 0 The college Library has a limited number of research studys available for faculty, graduate students and professional & scientific staff.Their intended for research and/or other scholarly activities that require materials, and are normally assigned a semester at a time. Fig. 2 The YMCA offers programs for kids and adults aimed at the ‘elimination’ of racism and the empowerment of Women, and Third-World people. The computation center: services for research and instructional computing as well as networking for the school. Services; consulting support, short courses, and eductional discounts on computer purchases. individual access accounts are available the on mainframe computers and a network of distibuted work stations and related servics. Copyright ã 2001 by Harcourt, Inc. |
The Assignment:
"Revise the original text so that it is geared towards UCF students. You may also change the structure of the text to better serve the audience. Think both globally AND locally. Make sure that any images you use conform to UCF's policies for using images. Remember that you can incorporate images, change text to fit your intended audience, and have full editing freedom for this assignment. I will be looking at your attention to audience needs' as well as your strategy for redesign and text editing." My Process: Purpose and Intended Audience For the editing assignment I chose to design a brochure whose purpose is to provide basic information regarding resources and services available in the University of Central Florida’s Libraries. While the primary audience consists of new students, the intended audience also includes new faculty, staff, and prospective students. Editing and Design Decisions When I began the assignment, I found that the original document had numerous problems. Not only are there errors in grammar and mechanics including some of the most basic spelling, but the document is also confusing and lacks any sense of organization or hierarchy. I had no idea who the original audience is, nor could I determine the purpose. Despite the first heading, “Success,” and a subheading, “On-Campus services,” the majority of the information seemed to be about the resources available in the campus library. Keeping this in mind, I chose to eliminate all extraneous information regarding the YMCA and computer center. While it was easy to complete basic copyediting, I found that the document needed much comprehensive editing. I had to rewrite most of the content so that the information would be accurate regarding the UCF Libraries. Additionally, I had to review the organization, visual design, and style to ensure that the document would meet its intended purpose. Therefore, I chose to reorganize the information in a two-panel brochure. I organized details into chunks of information and used bulleted lists. I used principles of document design to organize the information by using white space, enclosure, proximity, and similarity. All of these elements are missing in the original document. One of the final issues that I addressed while editing this document is the use of images. The original merely had placeholders labeled fig. 1 and fig. 2. I wanted to include the UCF logo, so I researched UCF’s policies regarding its use. The “Brand and Identity Guidelines” webpage of the UCF website states, “all others not listed in the section above must secure permission in writing from UCF Marketing prior to using UCF trademarks— this includes but is not limited to students and student clubs and/or student organizations registered through the Office of Student Involvement (OSI)”; therefore, I decided that I would only use UCF colors and pictures that are in the public domain. In order to determine the correct CYMK (this is intended to be a print document), I followed the guidelines on the “Design: Color, Typography, and Layout” webpage. I chose the metallic gold and black. While I did not have access to two of the fonts the page suggests, I used similar fonts for the headings and text (Adobe Gothic STD and Century). |