Editing and Fine Tuning ITSW 1410 Presentation Media Software Instructor: Glenda H. Easter

Editing and Fine Tuning

ITSW 1410Presentation Media SoftwareInstructor: Glenda H. Easter

Editing and Fine Tuning, Chp. 7

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Guidelines for Editing Software Documentation

Know Your User: A clear idea of the needs of people who will put the manual or help system to productive work.

Take a Constructive Attitude. Don’t Edit Your Own Work.


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Use Editing Forms if you are working on documentation with a group of a corporation.

Edit Strategically to pace yourself in the job.• Edit for only one document feature at a

time. Develop an Editor’s Reading Skills


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Develop an Editor’s Reading Skills (Continued):• Do a flip test: ten seconds per manual

to get the overall organization.• Skimming (six to ten pages per minute)

for spelling, mechanics, and punctuation.

• Reading selectively (two to three minutes per page.


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Develop an Editor’s Reading Skills (Continued):• Read analytically (five pages per hour).

Missing information, technical inaccuracies, paragraph organization and unity.

• The long look (one to two minutes per page; errors will not appear until after the first minute.)


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Consult Standard Style Guides for spelling and word usage guidelines.

Don’t Confuse Editing with Other Tasks:• Don’t supply missing material:

procedures, definitions explanations.


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Don’t Confuse Editing with Other Tasks (Continued):• Don’t supply missing screen captures.• Don’t write more than short passages.• Don’t edit a manuscript more than once.


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Writing versus Editing

Usually you write first, then you edit or get the material edited.

Systematic editing usually occurs after you complete the whole document.


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Various Types of Edits

Coordination Edit which is to plan and manage.

Policy Edit where the document conforms to the policy of the organization or department.

Integrity Edit ensures that the parts of a document match one another.


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Various Types of Edits (Continued)

Screening Edit which means identifying and correcting errors in the texts and visuals.

Copy Clarification Edit involves reworking illegible text and artwork so that persons involved in production will not make mistakes.


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• No one likes to read copyright notices, manual part numbers, legal disclaimers, official FTC notices, and lists of trademarks, but you should confirm that these are induced and that they are up to date.

• Make sure that the company’s address and phone number are correct, also.


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Format Edit ensures that all instances of typography, style, and page layout conform to the style guidelines for the document.

Mechanical Style Edit makes sure that the document mechanics conform to whatever style specifications you use.


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Language Edit or how clearly and precisely do sentences express explanations, steps, definitions, elaborations, and other language elements.

Substantive Edit where you pay close attention to the meaningful content of a document.


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Integrity Edits

Integrity Edit which requires policing the format: (Continued) • Art

• Does every piece have a caption?• Are the callouts in the right font and

position?• Is all the art the same size or one of the

authorized sizes?


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Integrity Edits (Continued)

Policing the format: (Continued) • Headers and Footers

• Are they in the right place?• Are they styled correctly?• Is the right information in them?• Do page numbers jibe?


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Integrity Edits(Continued)

Policing the format: (Continued)• Headings

• Are they all capitalized in the same way?• Do all the headings of the same level look

the same• Are any headings placed at the bottom of

the page, announcing no thing but the footer?


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Policing the format: (Continued)• Lists

• Are all items punctuated the same way (beginning with a capital letter or not, ending with a period or not)?

• Do all lists use the same indentations, bullets, numbering?

• Do they follow the company policy (which may assign different formats to different types of lists?)


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Policing the format: (Continued)• Product Names

• Are they all spelled and capitalized the right way?

• Do trademarks appear where they should (usually after the first reference to the product in the book, but your lawyers may disagree?)


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Policing the format: (Continued)• Punctuation

• Are there spaces before some periods or commas?

• Are there too many spaces after a period, commas, colon, semicolon, dash?

• Are hyphens used in place of dashes?• Are periods used in some areas, but not

in others?


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Being a Good Screen Editor

Check the English:• Circle any typos• Check for misspelled words• Look for repeated words (let, let)• Phrases that don’t sound correct.• Two idioms canceling each other out.• For professional writers, you should be

able to point out problems without correcting it.


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Being a Good Screen Editor

Check the English (Continued):• Check for spelling. Use spell checker

on the file if you have the file available.

• Recognize that even the best spell-check dictionaries don’t recognize the misuse of a correctly spelled word.


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Being a Good Screen Editor (Continued)

Check the English (Continued):• Watch for popular confusions, such as

its and it’s, effect and affect.• Check for grammar.• Check for punctuation, even more

carefully that you may have done for a regular edit.


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Check the Formatting• You must review the formatting of each

element separately, even more painstakingly than you may have done for a regular edit.


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Typos• These are usually lurking in the big

type, such as the book title, chapter titles, and major headings, which ever other reviewer has skipped, assuming that anything that large must be right.

• Typos also tend to cluster at the tops and bottoms of pages and in closing paragraphs.


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Pages as wholes• Make sure that every time a reader

opens the book, the two facing pages work together or at least don’t conflict with each other.

• Whenever you get to look at made-up pages, scan for irregular spacing between paragraphs, between headings and text, between the headers and footers and the rest of the text.


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Pages as wholes (Continued):• Make sure that no page has a widow or

orphan--a page break that leaves a heading at the bottom of the page, with no following text, or that abandons a paragraph’s last line at the top of the next page.


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Gaps in sequence• Are there any steps missing?• If a paragraph announces three items,

does the bulleted list have three items?

• Do the figure numbers proceed in order?

• Check pagination and any alphabetical or numbered sequences to make sure there are no gaps.


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Gaps in sequence (Continued):• Gaps creep in when the writer deletes

one item without renumbering the rest.


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Format Edits

Type styles, leading, column widths, headings, indention's.

Continuity instructions Progress indicators and navigational

tools. Running headers and footers Margins, spacing, rules, fonts, page

numbers, binding, tabs


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Mechanical Style Edit

Capitalization of acronyms (pc versus PC).

Look for the same word spelled two different ways (gray, grey).

Word compounding (“online or on-line)


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Mechanical Style Edit(Continued)

Form and construction of numerals and terms (“drive A:” versus A:-drive”

Form and use of acronyms and abbreviations.

Use of cuing patterns (bold, script, color) for specific words.


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Revising Someone Else's Manual

1. Define goals2. Edit don’t rewrite3. Make edit fit audience

• The level of detail seems right for the audience.

• The tone matches the audience’s expectations.

4. Untangle prose


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5. A list of potential stylistic messes to Watch Out For:

• Disagreement • Singular subject followed by many

prepositional phrases containing plural objects then a plural verb.

• Combinations such as “Everyone...they,”• The customer...they.”

• Irrelevancies• Examples that don’t match what was said

about them, illustrations that don’t illustrate.


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Potential Stylistic Messes (Continued):

• Lack of energy• Sentences that trail off, parallels that are not set up

but not completed, contrasts that aren’t carried out.

• Negative thinking• Paragraphs that start with a caution or a restriction.• Double negatives• Statements that could be phrased in positive

terms.


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• Noun clumps• Grab-bag sequences of three or more nouns in

a row that make the reader wonder which words should be considered together and which should be thought of as forming a modifying phrases.

• Sexism• Any use of he or she should trip the alarm.


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• Passive Voice• The verb to be should signal trouble.• Read carefully any sentence that contains some

for of is .• The sentence may turn out OK, but probably not.

• Sequential goofs• Paragraphs that don’t follow chronological

sequence, are missing steps, have topics that get in the way when you expect to go from Topic A to Topic B.


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• Unclear references• a that clause that appears long after the

object it refers to, dangling modifiers, pronouns without clear references.

• Unexplained terms, abbreviations, and acronyms


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• Future tense• Usually not needed and has less energy than

present tense.• It creeps in by accident or through laziness.

• Verbosity or wordiness


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6. Doing a Reproduction Edit• Access

• Make sure people can find their way around the book using tables of content, headers and footers, page numbers and the index.

• Completeness• A book is a collection of pieces. Is all the art

really here?• Is every appendix really in place?• It’s astonishing how many little parts can turn out

to be half done, mysteriously missing, or “still to come.”


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6. Doing a Preproduction Edit (Continued)

• Cross-references• Once you have completely prepared pages,

you need to make sure that the table of contents’ headings and page numbers match those of the document, that figure numbers march references, that the indexes sends people to the right place.

Documents

Editing and Fine Tuning ITSW 1410 Presentation Media Software Instructor: Glenda H. Easter