Editing
Technical Documents
A Series of Specialized
Courses in Technical Editing Skills
1. Grammar and Punctuation for
Technical Writers and Editors
An overview of grammar and punctuation designed for
technical writers and editors. Reviews basic principles of grammar and
punctuation, highlights common errors, and provides practice with correcting
grammar and punctuation in sentences and passages.
Summary of course content:
- Introduction-The importance of understanding
grammar and its terminology
- Grammar as a communication tool
- Parts of speech
- Sentence construction
- Grammatical rules
- Common grammar mistakes
- Editing for grammar
- Punctuation and its relationship to
grammar-functional punctuation
- Common punctuation mistakes
- Editing for punctuation
- Putting it all together-grammar and punctuation
in documents
2. Copyediting Skills for Technical
Editors
Highlights the many issues that must be addressed in order
to ensure that a technical document is accurate, correct, and consistent.
Focuses on the not-so-obvious issues that technical editors must address as
they work to produce clean and accurate copy. Includes practice with a variety
of technical documents.
Summary of course content:
- Introduction-copyediting is more than just
"fixing" grammar and punctuation
- The goals of copyediting
- Copyediting versus comprehensive editing
- Editing for grammar and punctuation
- Addressing issues of spelling and word treatment
- Editing for word usage
- Dealing with numbers
- Editing illustrations
- Ensuring accuracy of content
- Ensuring consistency using style guides and
style sheets
- Using word processing tools to streamline
copyediting
- Developing the "editor's eye"
- Practice copyediting with technical documents
3. Comprehensive Editing I: Writing
Style
Focuses on the elements of good technical writing style and
the process of helping writers to achieve this style. Reviews the
characteristics of good technical writing and examines the choices that support
good writing style at the word level, the sentence level, and the paragraph
level. Discusses ways that editors can work with writers to achieve an
effective style.
Summary of course content:
- Introduction-what is writing style?
- Characteristics of good technical
writing-clarity, conciseness, and consistency
- Choosing the right word
- Using
verbs effectively
- Using
concrete, accurate nouns and modifiers
- Creating effective sentences
- Working
with the sentence core
- Using
sentence structure to convey meaning
- Eliminating
wordiness
- Using
quotations properly
- Constructing paragraphs to achieve flow and emphasis
- Understanding
flow
- Using
position to create emphasis and flow
- Achieving
a consistent tone
- Communicating with writers about style issues
- Practice with editing passages for writing style
4. Comprehensive Editing II: Content,
Organization, and Visual Design
Focuses on issues of comprehensive editing for creating
overall document effectiveness. Describes the basic strategies of organization
in detail and illustrates the ways that these strategies are applied in
technical documents. Discusses the content review process and the development
of documents from rough outline to final draft. Provides an overview of basic
principles for effective visual design.
Summary of course content:
- Introduction-looking at the big picture of
content and organization
- Organizational strategies for technical
documents
- Choosing appropriate organizational principles
for specific documents
- Evaluating and improving top level organization
- Evaluating and improving unit level organization
- Working with paragraph level organization
- Guiding the writer through the document
development process
- Using headings and navigational aids to orient
the reader and improve usability
- Creating effective visual design for technical
documents
5. Technical Editing for Specific
Document Types
A customized editing course focused on work with specific
types of documents. The course can be adapted to suit the specific needs of an
organization.
Some examples of different types of documents that might be
targeted include the following:
- Engineering documents
- Requirements
- Specifications
- Operations
and maintenance manuals
- Reports
- Business documents
- Business
plans
- Press
releases
- White
papers
- Marketing
materials
- Software documents
- Help
systems
- User
manuals
- Procedures
for developers
- Online documents
6. Editing Efficiently and Effectively
with Microsoft Word
"Tricks of the trade" and special tips to enhance your
ability to edit documents using Microsoft Word. Focuses on Word's many features
and the ways these can be used to improve editing speed and efficiency.
Summary of course content:
- Using Track Changes to edit documents and review
changes
- Getting the most out of Word's spell checker
- Using Find and Replace
- Getting control of headers and footers
- Working with images
- Using Styles to achieve consistent formatting
- Working with templates
- Generating reference aids
- Table
of contents
- List
of tables and list of figures
- Practice with complex documents
