James Abbott McNeill. Whistler's Mother (1871)



Course Information
(Please start with the first week for assignments.)

Course objectives
Textbooks
Policies
Grades
Class e-mail: send | archive
Gradebook
Edit log: set up | access
Class notes
Resources
Reserved readings
Chatroom
Quick survey: fill out | view

Week of:
August 22
August 29
September 5
September 12
September 19
September 26
October 3
October 10
October 17
October 24
October 31
November 7
November 14
November 21
November 28
December 5

Other Links
ACC home page
BTCM Program home page
Course Overview

This is not a free course. To register either for regular academic credit or for continuing-education credit, see http://www.austincc.edu/.

This course, Editing Business, Government and Technical Information, is currently being offered as ETWR 2379 (and as POFT 1007 continuing education) at Austin Community College, Austin, Texas. In this course you learn administrative forms and organizational processes for technical editing, both for in-house and freelance; practice proofreading and copyediting (including standard, traditional hardcopy editorial markup and proofreading symbols); review grammar, usage, and punctuation rules; practice substantive (comprehensive) editing; develop portfolio-quality editorial samples; explore methods of editing electronically; and learn how to create style sheets and style guides.

Semester/year Spring 2011
Instructor Mindy Reed
Class location & meetings Online class
Office Northridge 4225
Office hours By appointment
Phone 512-907-1821
E-mail mreed@austncc.edu

Week of August 22

Getting organized. In this first week, take a look at the schedule, policies, objectives, and requirements for this course. Fill out an online questionnaire and write a brief get-acquainted memo that will be posted on our course website so we can all get know each other! We'll try to find a time when we can all meet "live" in a chatroom or Adobe Connect.

Due dates Watch and listen to the Course overview — due Aug. 29
Read about the course: a description, its objectives, policies, and grading plan — due Aug. 29
Fill out the questionnaire — due Aug. 29
Set up your edit log. Every time you do an edit, fill out this log: you can watch your efficiency and accuracy improve over the semester. You'll also have a good idea how to estimate editing projects. You'll get credit for the edit log by logging in the data for all your on-your-own edits. — due Aug. 29
Write the get-acquainted memo to introduce yourself to your instructor and the rest of the class. This memo will be password-protected; only our class can see these memos; ask your instructor for the password. — due Aug. 29
See the get-acquainted memos.
Week of August 29

Diagnostics. In the first two weeks of this course, take the grammar diagnostic, which checks how well you know grammar terminology, and the sentence diagnostic which checks how well you know your traditional usage and punctuation rules. (ETWR 2379 does not feature these topics; you can use the diagnostic results to study on your own.)

Diagnostics Grammar-terminology diagnostic — due Sept. 6
Sentence diagnostic — due Sept. 6

You get credit for taking these two diagnostics and additional credit when you complete the sentence-diagnostic-related exercises and quizzes.
Readings & quizzes Technical Writing Tips for Success — due Sept. 6
Rude Chapter 1. Editing: The Big Picture: quiz — due Sept. 6
Rude Chapter 2. Readers, Users, Browsers, Problem Solvers...: quiz — due Sept. 6
Editing assignment Review question 5 on page 27 then edit either the Open Heart Surgery Letter (pg. 28) or the Healthy Options brochure based on your conclusions — due Sept. 12

Week of September 5

Electronic editing, copyediting, style sheets. This week we continue one of the major focuses of this course: copyediting. That focus will include style sheets and methods for editing online.

Tutorials Electronic editing: tutorials
Readings & quizzes Rude Chapter 3. Collaborating with Writers: quiz — due Sept. 17
Rude Chapter 4: Marking Paper Copy: quiz — due Sept. 17
Rude Chapter 5: Marking Digital Copy: quiz — due Sept. 17
Editing assignment Scan or Fax the one page document with the appropriate markup symbols from chapter 2 (attached) Apply word processing setting to the stem cells document per question 2 on page 73 — due Sept. 20

Week of September 12

Electronic editing, copyediting, style sheets. We continue with our studies of copyediting and look into style sheets and methods for editing online.

Readings & quizzes Rude Chapter 6. Electronic Editing: quiz — due Sept. 19
Rude Chapter 7. Basic Copyediting—An Introduction: quiz — due Sept. 19
Rude Chapter 8. Copyediting for Consistency: quiz — due Sept. 19
Resources Copyediting resources (additional copyediting resources)
Study stylesheets
Practice creating stylesheets. (Use this stylesheet grid or design your own.)
Editing assignment Apply questions 2 (pg. 90) and 4. (pg. 91) to The How/When/Why/Costs When Hiring an Editor — due Sept. 23

Week of September 19

Review for exam 1. We'll complete whatever studies we have not done yet and review for exam 1.

Exam Exam 1 — available Sept. 22; due Sept. 26

Copyediting — continued. Review some essential issues for technical editors: spelling, capitalization, abbreviations, gramar and usage.

Readings & quizzes Rude Chapter 9. Spelling, Capitalization, and Abbreviations: quiz — due Sept. 26
Rude Chapter 10. Grammar and Usage: quiz — due Sept. 26
Practice Copyediting resources (for additional practice)
Editing assignment Favicons — due Oct. 1

Week of September 26

Punctuation and proofreading. We'll finish up with the copyediting and proofreading segment of this course with these two chapters from Technical Editing. See if you can explain the difference between copymarking and proofreading!

Readings & quizzes Rude Chapter 11. Punctuation: quiz — due Oct. 1
Rude Chapter 13. Proofreading: quiz — due Oct. 1
Editing assignment Punctuation assignment — due Oct. 8

Week of October 3

Quantitative and technical material. Read the Rude chapter on editing quantitative and technical material and take the quiz. We will probably not do any of the exercises from that chapter. Instead, we'll probably catch up with studies from the preceding week and review for the exam.

Readings & quizzes Rude Chapter 12. Quantitative and Technical Material: quiz — due Oct. 7
Rude Chapter 22. Type and Production: quiz — due Oct. 7
Rude Chapter 23. Project Management: quiz — due Oct. 7
Editing assignment Selling on eBay — due Oct. 8

Week of October 10

Comprehensive editing. We'll complete whatever studies we have not done yet and review for exam 2. This week we begin studying and practicing the business of comprehensive editing, as defined in Technical Editing.

Readings & quizzes Rude Chapter 14. Comprehensive Editing: Definition and Process: quiz — due Oct. 14
Rude Chapter 15. Style: Definition and Sentence Structures: quiz — due Oct. 14
Rude Chapter 16. Style: Verbs and Other Words: quiz — due Oct. 14

Code-style markup. Let's go over a simpler system of indicating fonts, margins, and alignment. You'll see a demo of how to use some type specs to mark up a document with codes that tel the type setter (human or program) how to set up the document for publication.

Coding & examples Overview of code-style markup. Read all about it.
Serious code. Frightening, huh? We'll use something simpler.
Example coding markup. Here is an example. (See the specs for this markup.)
Example coding markup. Here's a "real world" example.
Coding practice Coding-practice document. Type-code this document and send it to your instructor — due Oct. 17

Highlighting. Highlighting (the use of bold, italics, alternate fonts, all caps, etc.) is tricky in technical publications, especially computer publications.

Reading About highlighting. This optional reading should help you get a handle on one fairly standard highglighting scheme.
Reading Exercises. This is optional—I have not built this into the grading plan.

Review for exam 2. We'll complete whatever studies we have not done yet and review for exam 2.

Exam Exam 2 — available Oct. 14; due Oct. 21
Exam 2 will include copyediting and electronic editing.
Editing assignment Transparent backgrounds — due Mar. 10

Week of October 17

Comprehensive editing — continued. This week, get some ideas about how to edit for potential organizational problems and the overall visual design of a document.

Readings & quizzes Rude Chapter 17. Organization: quiz — due Oct. 24
Rude Chapter 18. Visual Design: quiz — due Oct. 24
McMurrey, Page design. Read about headings, lists, notices, and highlighting in the online textbook, and take the quiz — due Oct. 28
Colon News. Fast-breaking, up-to-the-minute news from the constantly changing world of colons! Chicken Soup: User Guide. There is a problem with headings, however.
Modernization edit. Comprehensive editing out of control.
Problem modifiers. Even editors can have fun . . . twisted though it may be. Expensive comma error. Interesting STC article, although I don't get it.

Writing edit summaries. How to write the edit summary for a comprehensive edit (a requirement on the final project in this course).
Example review letter. Here is an example of an edit-review summary (Word document) like the one you will be writing.
Exercises Practice review letter. Write an edit summary on the infamous "open heart surgery" document, and post it on the web page available at this link.
Read about headings, and do the exercises in which you identify standard formatting and style problems involving headings. — due Oct. 28
Read about lists, and do the exercises in which you identify standard formatting and style problems involving various types of lists. — due Oct. 28

Week of October 24

Style guide project. In our online meeting, you'll see how to create a simple style guide, and then you'll create one on your own.

Readings & quizzes McMurrey: style guides
Style guide overview. My recording.
Practice Style guide practice
Project Style guide project — due Oct. 30

Comprehensive editing — continued. Let's continue our work in comprehensive editing by exploring how to edit graphics and online documents.
Readings & quizzes Rude Chapter 19. Illustrations: quiz — due Oct. 30
McMurrey, Page design. Read about or review notices and highlighting in the online textbook.
Exercises Do the exercise identifying types of notices — due Oct. 30
Editing assignment Mail merge and RSS explained — due Oct. 30

Week of October 31

Comprehensive editing — continued. Let's continue our work in comprehensive editing by exploring how to edit graphics and online documents.

Readings & quizzes McMurrey: Read about Book design and take the quiz — due Oct. 31

Style guide. Don't forget! The style-guide project is due at the end of this week. For additional details, see the week of March 29.


Week of November 7

Editor summary memo or letter. This summary you'll include with your final project.

Readings & examples Edit summaries. This link provides a definition, functions, strategies, format of the summary.
Example edit summary. A nice example of what we are shooting for here.
Exercises Practice review letter. In one or more of our online meetings, we will write edit summaries on documents such as this one, the infamous "open heart surgery" document, and post them on the web page available at this link.
Editing assignment Red eye and transparent backgrounds — due Nov. 14

Week of November 14

Big issues for technical editors. Consider how an editor must take global contexts into account as well as ethical and legal issues.


Readings & quizzes Rude Chapter 20. Editing in Global Contexts: quiz — due Nov. 18
Rude Chapter 21. Legal and Ethical Issues in Editing: quiz — due Nov. 18
Practice Comprehensive editing resources
Pocket camcorder recommendation report — due Nov. 18

Week of November 21

Comprehensive edit project. We can discuss issues for this project (but not directly related!) and do similar practice work.

Projects Final project: copyedit and comprehensive edit — due Dec. 12

Editing assignment Digital camera recommendation report — due Nov. 23

Week of November 28

Happy Thanksgiving!

Week of December 5

Comprehensive edit project. We will continue getting ready for this project.

Projects Final project: copyedit and comprehensive edit — due May 5

Week of December 12

Semester wrap-up. If we are still interested, we can discuss the comprehensive edit after I hand your projects back.

Informal course evaluation Course evaluation form



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