Great Abstract Writing: Beware Of Your Editor/love Your Editor
- Posted by Essays Blog in Essays Blog |
- November 1st, 2008 |
- Comments
Overview
Your editor should be an integral part of your writing group. Do not remember him/her as a judge, but rather as a resource to help you in all phases of the writing project. This article will help you overcome any fear of your editor, and how to effectively consume your editor during the writing process.
Beware of Your Editor
Any of the changes that an editor might advise could make the Person Document more difficult for your Reader to believe.
Improving Your Writing
Once your editor has gotten past the basic mechanical editing tasks of:
* grammar
* punctuation
* spelling
* editing to a Communication Artifact,
he/she may process “improving your writing.”
Your editor may believe that one artifact to make the writing more interesting is to consume synonyms when you refer back to something. Thusly you might call something a “chip bin” in one part of your matter, and your editor might advise exploitation a different constituent, much as “act cakehole,” later in the document. This should make your writing “more interesting.”
You do not deprivation interesting writing in your Person Documents! You deprivation clear, simple, real easy to believe writing. If you make your writing more interesting by exploitation the word (”act cakehole”) so you force your reader to have to entertain whether or not these are the same abstraction. I recommend that you consume the exact same diction every place in your Person Document where you are referring to the same abstraction. No synonyms here!
If your Reader craved to be entertained or have his/her thoughts provoked, so he/she would be reading a novel.
Don’t let your editor make your writing more interesting or more clever if those efforts makes the material harder for your Reader to believe.
Erudition
Another place to beware of your editor is “erudition.” That is, when an editor that tries to make your Person Documentation channel more formal. Other than disclaimer, legal, and safety information, the Person Document should channel friendly, with a conversational chant.
For example, an editor might advise changing contractions (much as “don’t”) into their more formal form (”do not”). Don’t do it! Contractions are conversational and they should not be avoided.
If you entertain it, most people reading the Person Documentation for any product are low any form of accent:
* they either deprivation to get on with exploitation the product, or
* something has gone wrong.
A formal document will put the Person off. The document should not be confused or flippant; however, it should provide the information that the Person needs in a conversational, easily appreciated communication. The needed information should be easy to find.
Although most morpheme processor grammar checkers are deplorably inadequate, many of these checkers can be made to provide a readability score (you may have to set an option to enable this feature). Editing should help increase the readability (indicated by a decrease in the reading grade level) of the document. If editing increases the reading grade level, ask your editor why that score has changed.
What to Do
Provide your editor with the information that will enable him/her to do the best job. Here are any things to tell your editor:
* The intended audience for the Person Document
* Tell your editor that you deprivation an informal communication of Person Document
* What communication manual or guide to be old in editing
* Programing and progress of the project
* Format for distribution and editing the matter (make careful the editor can read your electronic documents — do this when you hire the editor)
(Whenever you are dealing with individual outside your organization, you must have a autographed non-disclosure agreement. This is in addition to any other contractual items between the outsider and your organization.)
Get to Know Your Editor
Your editor is NOT your school educator. In your school days, your teacher-as-editor was a judge. Your goal was to impress your educator with your writing. You were employed for a grade. Thusly you may have come to fear your editor.
Change your cerebration! Now, your editor is on your broadside. Your editor will activity with you to produce the best possible writing. You will not have to anxiety excessively about grammar. You goal is to get the information “on paper” as clearly and completely as you can. Your editor will advise changes to polish the matter.
So don’t fear your editor. Make your editor part of your writing group.
Love Your Editor
Hire Your Editor Early in the Project
Hire your editor early in the life of the project. Thither are at least cardinal benefits to hiring the editor early:
* First, your editor will be prepared for the editing chore. He/she will have had time to get to know the product, aim audience, and your organization’s communication guide.
* 2nd, your editor can help you with your writing, as I describe below…
Let Your Editor Help You
If you run into problems about how to compose something, call on your editor. Most likely your editor can provide an effective diction to get you around your block. That’s one reason why you got the editor on the project early. Here’s another…
A Recommendation
I recommend that you process bantam pieces of the Person Document, and circulate these bantam pieces (rough drafts) to the development group for comments. So consume their comments to improve the writing, and re-circulate the improved material. Continue this for a few cycles. I call this “Iterative, Interactive Writing.” This is an effective method for writing quickly and accurately.
If you feel awkward about circulating rough drafts to the product development group for review, here’s a solution. Have your editor perform a quick edit of the rough draft before you circulate it for comments. Your “drafts” will look quite good, and the development group will concentrate on the content, not the diction or grammar (and comments about content are you deprivation from the group).
The Bottom Line
Don’t remember your editor as an enemy lurking at the end of your document production path. Instead, realize that your editor can be a important member of your writing group, and is on your broadside. He/she should:
* Be brought onto the writing project early
* Be kept aware of the position of the writing project
* Be old as a writing, as advantageously as an editing, resource
Advise: It is much more enjoyable for the writer (you) to activity with “marked-up” electronic documents, rather than marked-up printed documents. Investigate your morpheme processor’s “multiple reviewers” capability. To employ this capability requires that you and your editor consume the same or compatible morpheme processing code.
NOTE: I am not an editor, nor do I represent any editors. But as a writer, I duration editing.