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Five Basic Tips to Proofread Your Content

· Content, Editing, Proofreading, Writing

You’ve researched and crafted a motivational article. Although it’s ready to publish, you want to proofread for obvious errors. No sense in publishing a piece with spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes. Right?

What do you do?

Stop, look, and proofread!

  1. Manually proofread your content.Manually Proofread

    Read each sentence out loud. Sometimes reading out loud will help you catch phrases or words that don’t fit. Or, you’ll hear the flow of the piece better than when you scan the words with your eyes.

  2. Review for active v. passive voice.

    ♦Which voice best suits your content?

    ♦Passive voice may slow the reader down and it’s less compelling than active voice.

  3. How’s your layout?

    ♦Check for consistency!

    ♦What format do you use for headings and lists?

    ♦Make sure you have a consistent format that makes your piece easy to read.

  4. Look for commonly misspelled words and typos.

    ♦Automated tools don’t catch everything! Trial and Trail are both correct; but an attorney doesn’t go to trail.

    ♦Reading the document backwards to help you catch spelling errors.

    ♦For a humorous discussion, check out Adventures with Automated Spell Checker.

  5. Use correct grammar and punctuation.

    ♦Did you use commas, semi-colons, and colons correctly and consistently?

    ♦Look for clichés and eliminate them. Consider unique descriptive phrases instead.

    ♦Look for redundant phrases and simplify.

 

Unsure about which rule to follow?

Refer to your publication’s style guide for their rules.

If the publication doesn’t have a style guide, select your own. Some options:

Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed

 

Microsoft Manual of Style-Proofread

 

or American Psychological Association Style

Once you’ve proofread and edited your piece, go ahead and submit it for publication. Your editors will appreciate the consistently-organized and formatted content.

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Would you like revisions or substantive editing by a Non-involved Third Party? Send me a sample and let’s chat!

My Top 3 Editor Roles

· Content, Editing, Editor, Technical Communicator

In 2016, the STC Technical Editing SIG held a Watercooler Chat entitled, Technical Editors Wear Many Hats. We discussed the evolving role of an editor and various roles technical editors play. Some common responsibilities:

  • proofreader
  • trainer
  • peer reviewer
  • writer
  • video creator 

Most days, I juggle several editorial roles. Here are my three favorites.

1. Peer Reviewer

Peer reviews–or feedback–isn’t formal editing. I critique stories, blog posts, articles, chapters, or online course material. Sometimes, it’s an early draft and my colleague wants another read to help her organize the piece. Other times a fellow writer emails the story for me for one last review, to make sure the piece flows.

The side benefit? I read material before it’s published!

2. Proofreader

It’s all in the details! A client sends me a draft article or a link to their website. The task? Proofread for grammar, spelling, and punctuation matter.

One client asked me to proof their initial blog posts. I received the link to the newly-launched website and began reading. One post had this bold title: Heart Attach [sic]. I emailed a screenshot to the client before adding this error to my list. “Yikes! I proofread that title many times! It’s supposed to be ‘Heart Attack’.” Every writer needs a proofreader!

We can’t trust the automated spell checkers to pick up all our errors. ‘Attach’ is a good word but not the right word for this context!

3. UX (User Experience) Editor

I hadn’t thought of UX testing as editing. In several cases, I test as a consumer and provide text edits.

Case 1: Missing Login/Logout Buttons

Recently, I checked on one educational institution’s website. Where’s the login button? I wondered. I emailed their tech support. Tech Support responded that there’s no login button and provided the login steps. After I click around, I wanted to logout. No logout button or link, and when I closed the browser and reopened, I was still logged in. Again, I contacted Tech Support; they sent me the logout link.

My feedback to the institution? It was difficult to login and logout; please add buttons!

Case 2: Missing Donate Button and Unsecured Website

A non-profit client requested that I click through their site and try some features. We agreed that I would try and donate, to test the automated responses. On the main page, there was no Donate button. Why make a potential donor hunt through the site to give money? When I did find the donation page, I noticed that the website address wasn’t secure (not https). Consumers don’t want to provide PII (Personally Identifiable Information) on an unsecured website.

My suggested edits? Secure the donation page. Add Donate buttons on all pages.

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What kind of edits does your content need? Enter your description in the Contact Form and let’s collaborate!

 

What Happens When You Underestimate a Project Cost and How to Fix It

· Content, Customer Relations, Documentation, Project Plan

Note: The original post about project cost estimates is here. Shout out and thank you to Lizzie Davey for hosting Wanderful World!

How do you estimate the time and cost for a project?

Projects have many variables.

Lizzie Davey asked a similar question in her weekly email. “…[H]ow are we supposed to know how long it’s going to take us to read through a 35-page document and edit it? It all depends on the language, how much of it is images, and how deep an edit the client wants, right?”

Right!

Highlights

The prospective client came through a personal referral. I based my timeframe and price were based on prior experience, and I dug into the work. Part way through, I discovered that the content development took longer than my original estimate to the client.

Full Story

I share the full story and solution in my guest post, What Happens When You Underestimate a Project Cost and How to Fix It.

Have you ever underestimated a project?

What did you do to fix the situation? Let us know in the comments.

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Image from Pixabay, Public Domain; text on the board (c) Sherri Leah Henkin 2017

7 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Starting a Documentation Project

· Content, Documentation, Project Plan, Writing

The Project Scene

You have some information for the new documentation project. Your managers can write, but they’re involved in deployment and sales. So they don’t have much time to work on this new content. The responsibility rests with you. Where do you start?

Or, you have your policies and procedures. And the government agency you follow published new regulations. The agency gave everyone 10 months to update their documents. Your managers have customer-facing projects; they don’t have time to update P&P. Where do you start?

With a needs analysis!

 

Ask Yourself These Questions

1. What stage is your documentation/content in now?

  • Think about the applications the content is in. Word? PDF? A help authoring tool? Jumbled notes?

2. What is the purpose of the content project?

  • Will you update existing content to meet government regulations?
  • Are you updating content for a re-branding project?
  • Or will you create work instructions for a new department.

3. Who are the key players or stakeholders in this project?

4. Who are your users, your target audience?

  • End-users outside the company such as external customers?
  • End-users inside the company, such as your call center operators?
  • The general public?

5. What is the final content and what format will you use?

  • Examples: Procedures; work instructions; flowchart; training presentations; white paper, or embedded help.
  • Output media examples: Print; PDF; Web Help, or blog.

6. What is your time frame?

7. And the money question: What is your budget?

Create a Successful Documentation Project

You want a successful documentation project. Define the stage of your content now, before you start. Be clear about your goal. Set those parameters in the Planning or Initiation Phase (see PMI). And conduct a needs analysis!

 

New Writer Role–Content Creator

· Technical Communicator, Technical Writer, Writer, Writing

Yes, I am a writer–a Technical Writer–also known as a Technical Communicator. My pet name: Creative Technical Communicator. Anyone else out there? Seems so. Neal Kaplan talks about creativity in his article, “The More Things Change, the More (Some) Things Need to Stay the Same”, Intercom, January 2015, 6-9. Neal tells us that TCs (Technical Communicators) don’t simply write, edit, or document a process. We develop and create the content for our customers. Neal calls TCs content creators!

Business Peacemaker

As content creators, we foster communication among teams: We help get folks talking with each other who may not typically sit on the same committees. True. When I developed a cross-functional workflow for mortgage banking, I met with the usual departments (origination, processing). To get the Big Picture, though, we included the rest of the mortgage teams, collections, default, and even sales. All in the same room. We broke through barriers and opened the communication lines. The result? The workflow reflected the entire mortgage lifecycle. My image: Business Peacemaker!

Translator

TCs turn complex concepts into clear, concise text (p. 8); we translate. That’s right up my alley. I originally wanted to be a translator. I thought Translation meant changing a foreign language into English. My career went through many iterations, yet that’s what I am…a translator! I translate from Complex English to Concise English!

Adaptability

The key to success is adaptability: Accept and implement new tools and processes (p. 9). Different tools show up in my Inbox almost daily! And I welcome the opportunity to learn some of these new techniques.

Acceptance

TCs are open to feedback…even if it means we must trudge through the five stages of grief to get to Acceptance (p. 9)! By accepting the constructive feedback, I develop my writing and editing skills.

And creatively write and develop content!

 

Got raw documents? Let’s create your content!

Complete the Contact Form and let’s get this project going!

 

 

Images from Pixabay, Public Domain.