Chapter 9 Revising, Rewriting, and Editing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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, 07458. All Rights Reserved.

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

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

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