Final Project for Hirst's Technical Editing Class

Your final assignment is to create a portfolio piece that will showcase your technical editing skills. It should demonstrate at least basic design and layout skills as well as mature text editing skills. This final project will have three sections, bound in a 3-ring binder with tab dividers between the sections.

The three sections are:

I. Pre-Editing Document Analysis

II. Edited Document

III.Final Output

In more detail:
I. Pre-Editing Document Analysis
This section must demonstrate that you know how to analyze a document and come up with an editing plan. Divide the section into these 5 sub-sections:

1. Analysis of document's

• Purpose
• Audience
• Circumstances
• Uses

2. Evaluation of document to determine how well the document is likely to achieve its purpose towards the audience, under the given circumstances, and given the uses to which it will be put. This involves evaluating the documentÕs

• Substance
• Structure
• Style
• Design (layout, graphics, all visual elements)
• Mechanics

3. Establishment of editing objectives on the basis of the evaluation. Here you must set forth a specific plan for revising the document in order to improve its chances of accomplishing its purpose towards its audience, and so on. This will probably involve specific objectives for each of the categories listed immediately above.

4. OPTIONAL: "Minutes" from the real or fictional meeting between you and your client, supervisor, etc. wherein you negotiate and come to a final agreement about what your editing should accomplish for this document.

5. Bibliography of editing tools used, style sheet.

II. Edited Document (showing all markup)
This section must contain the original document you have undertaken to edit. It should be marked so as to show as much of your copyediting skill as possible. Mark also for substance and structure, but keep the pages legible. DonÕt fill them with so much red that a reviewerÕs eyes will glaze over.

III. Final Output (sharp, laser-written final copy)
This section must display the final form of the document: the form it takes after you have caused it to meet all the objectives you spelled out, and after all your copyediting instructions marked in section two have been carried out. Make this look good. If you wish to revise a web site, a video presentation, or anything other than a paper-and-ink document ("print document"), please see me.

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