Mantex

Tutorials, Study Guides & More

>> Home / Archives for Writing skills

Developing Online Content

by

The principles of writing and editing for the Web

Anybody who has worked on Web projects will know they can become very complex. And those who provide the textual content are often trapped between graphic designers striving for visual glamour, and clients who want to promote their message. This guide to the entire process offers both detailed advice on writing and editing, plus checklists of help on how to clarify the job of the content provider, and how to survive a project. The authors start out by explaining the role of the web author and editor. This tends to be a mixture – part designer, part content provider, part information architect, plus usability tester and proofreader.

Developing Online ContentThey start with an excellent analysis of why so many business web sites are unappealing, inefficient, and downright bad. There’s a very good example of their makeover of the CIA web site, which spends too much time patting itself on the back. They improve its efficiency by ruthless pruning and making the information user-oriented. This is a master class in converting text from its print brochure origins to web-based delivery.

The focus throughout is on text, but they give plenty of attention to its close relationship with images on web sites. There’s also an interesting consideration of the theory, the psychology, and the creation of hypertext links.

They have a lot of interesting observations on the relationship between the Web page and the screen. The issues are those all Web authors confront: how to minimise scrolling; how to keep content in the reader’s mind; and how to create tight structure and clear navigation.

They also have valuable advice on creating editorial style guides and proofreading, plus an explanation of the latest technology and how it affects the content of a site.

It’s a professionally oriented book, which assumes readers might wish to work in the new medium. And they tell you how to go about it. There are tables and checklists of the skills you will require and even pointers towards the opportunities available and what rates to charge.

This is aimed at intermediate to advanced users – but it will be of interest to anybody who wants to extend their writing skills into the digital realm. I read this book whilst engaged on two medium-sized Web projects, and can confirm that all the roles, tasks, and collaborations they describe are 100 per cent accurate.

© Roy Johnson 2002

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US

Irene Hammerich and Claire Harrison, Developing Online Content: the Principles of Writing and Editing for the Web, New York: John Wiley, 2002, pp.384, ISBN 0471146110

More on online learning
More on technology
More on digital media
More on web design
More on computers

Dictionary for Scientific Writers and Editors

by

specialist scientific style guide and reference

This Dictionary for Scientific Writers and Editors is aimed at scholars working in an academic setting and people writing or editing scientific papers – say in book publishing or the mass print media. It gives exact details of how scientific matter is presented in written form – both in terms of the correct spelling for scientific terms and the manner in which scientific data such as equations are rendered on the page. It’s part of a set of specialist dictionaries and style guides produced by Oxford University Press.

Dictionary for Scientific Writers and EditorsThe OUP is the number one source for reference books of this kind, and the series manages to compress huge, unwieldy databases of information into a handy, useable format. This single volume includes over 9,700 entries which reflect accepted usage, and it follows the recommendations of international scientific bodies such as the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.

It gives clear guidance on such matters as spellings (American English and British English), punctuation, abbreviations, prefixes and suffixes, units and quantities, and symbols. Also included are the correct spelling of chemical and medical terms; short explanations of the meaning of scientific concepts; basic data about famous scientists; explanations of acronyms; and definitions of terms.

There are appendices with lists of chemical and electro-magnetic symbols; the periodic table; scientific symbols; and a list of web-based resources. It provides substantially enlarged coverage from previous editions, with increased coverage of the life sciences, and new entries in physics, astronomy, chemistry, computer science, and mathematics.

This comprehensive and authoritative A-Z guide is an invaluable tool for students, professionals, and publishers working with writing in the fields of physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, biochemistry, genetics, immunology, microbiology, astronomy, mathematics, and computer science.

These style guides are in a curious format – royal sixteenmo – which is smaller than a conventional book, but too bulky to be pocket-sized. But I must say that it looks quite diminutively handsome on my shelves alongside its colleagues the New Oxford Spelling Dictionary, New Hart’s Rules, and the Oxford BBC Guide to Pronunciation.

© Roy Johnson 2009

Dictionary for Scientific Writers and Editors   Buy the book at Amazon UK

Dictionary for Scientific Writers and Editors   Buy the book at Amazon US

New Oxford Dictionary for Scientific Writers and Editors, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp.451, ISBN: 0199545154

More on language
More on literary studies
More on writing skills
More on creative writing
More on grammar

Dictionary for Writers and Editors

by

difficult cases of spellings and expressions

The Dictionary for Writers and Editors has been ‘repurposed’ from its original larger-scale edition to sit alongside the New Oxford Spelling Dictionary, New Hart’s Rules, and the Oxford BBC Guide to Pronunciation. These form a group of new reference sources for writers and editors who are concerned with preparing texts for publication to the highest possible standard. It’s a specialist dictionary for writers, journalists, and text-editors. It offers rulings on words and spellings which are commonly problematic.

Dictionary for Writers and Editors For instance, do we write Muslim or Moslem, customise or customize? It covers the names of well-known people and places, foreign words and commonly-used phrases such as petit-bourgeois and persona non grata. Entries run from A as a letter or paper size to Zydeco music and Zyklon B.

Many of these items are in any good dictionary, but this one eliminates all the non-problematic words and makes the book easier to use. It also deals with abbreviations, capitalization and punctuation. I looked up amendment [one ‘m’] superseded [yes – it’s spelt with an ‘s’] and manageable [it keeps the ‘e’]. It can also be used as a quick guide to many niceties of writing (the difference between hyphens and dashes) and as a potted source for historical names, dates, and places of importance.

At first glance, there might not seem much difference between this and an ordinary dictionary, but the process of selection and the emphasis on explanations of common problems makes it a very useful resource. This latest edition offers a huge revision and update on the original. Entries have been expanded on doubtful or variable spellings (“gettable” not “getable”); the punctuation of dates and spellings of proper names; and all those other little things that are so difficult to be consistent about when writing. It is also an invaluable guide to words that are often confused such as biannual (twice every year, or every six months) and biennial (every two years).

It is designed to be used in conjunction with New Hart’s Rules, which gives details of how text should be edited in preparation for printing. The headword is set in bold sans-serif, which makes it more immediately legible, though it might seem strange if you are used to the OUP tradition of bold Roman. There are four appendices: mathematical and logical symbols; proofreading marks; a list of diacritical accents; and tables for transliterating Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, and Russian.

It should certainly be amongst the reference tools of anybody who takes a serious interest in writing. The new smaller handbook format is a matter of personal taste, but it certainly looks a handsome little tome flanked by its three cousins.

Dictionary for Writers and Editors   Buy the book at Amazon UK

Dictionary for Writers and Editors   Buy the book at Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2005

The Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp.434, ISBN: 0198610408

More on language
More on literary studies
More on writing skills
More on creative writing
More on grammar

Digital Magazine Design

by

magazine design principles – plus practical examples

Digital Magazine Design is a guide to computer-based graphic design principles based on modern magazine production and its requirements. The manual provides detailed descriptions of all the necessary rules of design, and uses these rules to cast a critical eye over a selection of contemporary high-street magazines. It starts off by emphasising the need for understanding basic interface metaphors. If we know our way around one desktop, we can usually work out how to find our way round another. The same is true of print publications.

Digital Magazine DesignThere is a convention to the order of items in a magazine of which casual readers are often unaware. Then Paul Honeywell goes through the elements of page design – using grids to structure graphics and text; controlling the density and appearance of the text by using line-spacing, hyphenation, and tracking. There’s also quite a lot of technical detail pertaining to colour mixing and the use of images.

A couple of chapters deal with the details of digital type design – though more illustrations would have been useful in demonstrating the issues at point here. There’s also advice on using a bureau when it is appropriate to outsource work. This goes into the details of file types, pre-press document checks, and keeping an accurate account of work flow.

The second part demonstrates how the tools of design can be applied to the
analysis and practice of contemporary magazine design. It’s a collection of case studies – ranging from Hi-Fi News, Kerrang!, She, and Empire, to Classic FM magazine.

These cover analysis of magazine design, with before and after accounts of layout and typography – complete with effects on sales and readership. There’s a lot of description here, where an illustration would have been far more effective.

These are post-graduate projects – revealed in the use of academic signposting (‘This essay aims to closely analyse …’) – which might easily have been edited out. This could easily be done if the book ever goes to a second edition.

© Roy Johnson 2003

Digital Magazine Design   Buy the book at Amazon UK

Digital Magazine Design   Buy the book at Amazon US

Paul Honeywell and Daniel Carpenter, Digital Magazine Design, Bristol: Intellect, 2003, pp.160, ISBN: 1841500860

More on publishing
More on journalism
More on creative writing
More on writing skills

Doing Creative Writing

by

a guide for undergraduate and postgraduate students

Can creative writing actually be taught? Well – judging from the number of college and university courses devoted to the subject, and the number of books written about it, the answer appears to be ‘Why not?’ Steve May teaches at Bath Spa University , and Doing Creative Writing is an attempt to support students whilst they choose a suitable course, what to expect when they embark on it, how to organise themselves as writers, and what possibilities exist for a writer once the course has finished.

Doing Creative WritingApart from having the desire to write, not many students know what is involved in the process. His first two chapters argue the case for teaching creative writing against the advice of such lofty figures as Henry James, who believed that it could not be taught.

He uses music as an analogy: nobody would expect to pick up a clarinet (as they might a pen) and perform a Mozart concerto without learning how to play the instrument first.

The next section will be of vital interest to anyone planning to study creative writing in higher education. He looks at the way it is taught in the US and the UK; he explains the variety of reasons why such courses are offered; and he provides guidance for judging the calibre of the people teaching the subject. Not many people realise that some of the best ‘qualified’ (published writers) might well be employed on a part-time basis and paid at hourly rates.

When you’ve enrolled on your course, what can you expect to happen? You’ll have to get used to the idea of the seminar or workshop in which you’ll be expected to present your own work and have it discussed by fellow students. He gives advice on how to handle the feedback you will be given – and how to give your own when you in your turn become ‘the audience’.

He tackles head-on the often vexed issue of assessment in creative work. Be warned! These workshops might form part of your assessment – so don’t think these sessions are an easy option where you can sit back and just listen. He shows real-life examples of the criteria UK and US institutions use, and he emphasises the element of self-assessment or reflective writing which is common to both.

The last part of the book is dedicated to the techniques of creative writing – where to write, how to write, what to write about, what materials to use, and how to present the finished work.

He also includes some real-life case studies of students who have taken creative writing courses and the variety of paths their careers have taken; and finally there’s a useful bunch of recommendations for further reading.

This is a useful adjunct to books which focus on the techniques of creative writing (such as Ailsa Cox’s recent Writing Short Stories) and it’s obviously aimed at students with ambitions in creative writing course who may not know which course to choose – or what to expect when they get there.

© Roy Johnson 2007

Creative Writing   Buy the book at Amazon UK

Creative Writing   Buy the book at Amazon US

Steve May, Doing Creative Writing, London: Routledge, 2007, pp.152, ISBN: 0415402392

More on creative writing
More on writing skills
More on publishing

Drafts of essays

by

sample from HTML program and PDF book

1. Don’t imagine that you should be able to produce a fluent and successful essay at your first attempt. Even professional writers don’t work like that. You should think of writing as a process in which the first stages are sketches or rough drafts. These will help you to produce something more polished and fluent at a later stage.

2. The advantages of working in this way are enormous. You can disregard the fine details and concentrate on generating your arguments. The writing does not need to be grammatically correct. You can come back later to make corrections.

3. There is no need to worry too much about the structure of what you produce. If new ideas come to mind, you can write them down. Anything can be changed later, when you do more work on the essay.

4. This writing strategy assumes that you are prepared to do this extra work. You should try to avoid thinking of the first draft as the finished essay, no matter how much effort you have put into its production. Regard it instead as the raw material from which a more considered and well-crafted second draft will be produced. You should be prepared for extensive re-writing.

5. A word-processor is an ideal writing tool for working with drafts. You can choose to keep polishing and refining the same basic document, saving it to incorporate each set of changes. Alternatively, you can create and save separate drafts. These may then be compared and mixed until you have produced something to your satisfaction.

© Roy Johnson 2003

Buy Writing Essays — eBook in PDF format
Buy Writing Essays 3.0 — eBook in HTML format

More on writing essays
More on How-To
More on writing skills

Eats, Shoots and Leaves

by

a radical defense of traditional punctuation rules

Who would have thought it! A book on punctuation at the top of the best-seller lists. The title refers to joke about a panda who goes into a cafe, orders a sandwich, then pulls out a gun and fires it. The panda had read an encyclopedia entry on itself which contained the unnecessary comma in Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Lynn Truss’s attitude to punctuation is enthusiastic, robust, and uncompromising, as her subtitle makes clear.

Eats, Shoots and LeavesShe wants you to become angry at the misuse of apostrophes and indignant at misplaced commas. She teaches via anecdote, which is probably why the book is so popular. There are no stuffy grammar lessons here, just accounts of bad punctuation, explanations of why they are wrong, and exhortations to keep up standards.

She likens punctuation to good manners – something which should be almost invisible, but which eases the way for readers. And in fact for all her slightly tongue-in-cheek militancy, she takes a non-pedantic line where there are areas of doubt or where punctuation becomes a matter of taste and style.

She takes you on a lively and entertaining tour of the comma, the semicolon, the apostrophe, the colon, and the full stop. Then it’s on to the piquancies of the exclamation and the question mark.

There are several interesting but mercifully brief detours into the history of punctuation – and I couldn’t help smiling when she confessed that her admiration for Aldus Manutius the elder (1450-1515) ran to being prepared to have his children.

Her style is very amusing and, appropriately enough for a book on language, quite linguistically inventive. She knows how to get close to you as a reader and isn’t scared to take risks.

For all her vigilance however, I think she misunderstands one example of the apostrophe – and the point of the joke it is making. A cartoon showing a building with the sign Illiterate’s Entrance could be using the term ‘illiterate’ as a collective singular. She thinks it should read Illiterates’. But we won’t quibble.

She ends by looking at the chaos of random punctuation which now predominates much of email messaging – and feels apprehensive. But I don’t think she needs to worry. For every hyphen or ellipsis to punctuate a gap in thought and sense, there is a new word or a new linguistic invention to compensate. Language may well be a self-compensating and even self-correcting system after all.

Anyone who is unsure about the basics of punctuation will learn some valuable lessons here, and those who already care will have their feelings and understanding confirmed in a very entertaining manner.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves   Buy the book at Amazon UK

Eats, Shoots and Leaves   Buy the book at Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2009

Lynn Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, London: Profile Books, 2009, pp.209, ISBN: 0007329067

More on writing skills
More on language
More on grammar

Editing and Revising Text

by

beginner’s guide to editing and re-writing

Oxford University Press have just brought out a series of short beginners’ manuals on communication skills. Their emphasis is on compact, no-nonsense advice directly related to issues of everyday life. Jo Billingham’s Editing and Revising Text provides a practical approach to reworking your writing for students, office workers, and newsletter editors. She covers editing your own work and text written by others, and her whole approach is designed to help you make any writing more effective.

Editing and Revising Text Every part of writing is covered – from the choice of individual words, through sentence construction and arranging paragraphs, to creating firm structure in the parts of a longer piece of work. She discusses the differences between editing, re-writing, and proof-checking, and shows how to revise sentences for brevity, simplicity, and clarity (move the subject to the start!).

There’s an interesting section on how to edit if there’s too little or too much information in the text, plus the importance of how to judge if it’s right for its intended audience.

She also covers the process of making multiple edits – on paper and screen – and quite rightly suggests that it is best to edit for one feature at a time.

I was glad to see that she emphasises the usefulness of the word-processor as an aid to editing. It’s amazing how work can be improved by using spelling and grammar-checkers, as well as the powerful tools of cut-and-paste, and search-and-replace.

The book has examples from real articles, essays, letters and reports, and the last part is a series of checklists for different types of editing – technical, academic, business, and even email.
She also gives a brief explanation of proof-reading, and perhaps the most difficult task of all – making sure that there is structural and linguistic ‘flow’.

The chapters of these guides are short and to-the-point; but the pages are rich in hints, tips, and quotes in call-out boxes. The strength of this approach is that it avoids the encyclopedic volume of advice which in some manuals can be quite frightening.

© Roy Johnson 2005

Editing and Revising   Buy the book at Amazon UK

Editing and Revising   Buy the book at Amazon US

Jo Billingham, Editing and Revising Text, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp.136, ISBN: 0198604130

More on publishing
More on journalism
More on creative writing
More on writing skills

Editing essays

by

sample from HTML program and PDF book

1. Editing essays or any piece of writing before you submit it for assessment is a sure way of improving its quality. Only very skilled writers can produce work without making mistakes. The elimination of small errors will improve the appearance and effectiveness of what you write.

2. The difference between a first and second rate piece of work may rest on just a little extra time spent checking what you have written. Read through your work carefully and correct any errors.

3. If necessary, read the essay out loud to check its grammar and correctness, but keep in mind that a conversational tone is not appropriate in essays.

4. Eliminate any sloppy or muddled writing. If something strikes you as weak or unclear, take the trouble to put it right. If this is not possible, be prepared to eliminate it from the essay.

5. Check for sentences which are grammatically incomplete. Look out for those which might lack any part of the Subject-Verb-Object minimum for grammatical coherence.

6. Check for missing words. Insert them into even the neatest completed typescript or manuscript. If you are using a word-processor, a grammar-checker might help you here.

7. Check that you have spelled correctly any proper names, technical terms, or lesser-known words. If in doubt, look them up in a good dictionary. Use the spell-checker if your word-processor has one.

8. Check that your punctuation is consistent, accurate, and legible.

9. Check for consistency in the layout of your pages.

10. If your final draft contains a lot of mistakes and corrections, be prepared to re-write it, even if this will take quite some time. This will give you the opportunity to improve your presentation, and you will probably discover that you can introduce further improvements to the arguments.

Checklist

  • Eliminate any awkward turns of phrase
  • Split up any sentences which are too long
  • Re-arrange the order of your paragraphs
  • Eliminate any repetitions
  • Correct errors of spelling or punctuation
  • Create smooth links between paragraphs
  • Add anything important you have missed
  • Delete anything which is not relevant
  • Check for weak syntax and grammar
  • Run the grammar-checker and spell-checker

© Roy Johnson 2003

Buy Writing Essays — eBook in PDF format
Buy Writing Essays 3.0 — eBook in HTML format

More on writing essays
More on How-To
More on writing skills

Editing on screen and paper

by

an email discussion amongst professional writers

Editing documentsThis discussion first took place on the WRICOM (Writing and Computers) mailing list, which is hosted by Mailbase (UK). Note that these are personal opinions, exchanged in the casual manner of email messaging. The language and style are deliberately informal. There is no guarantee that the email addresses of individual contributors will be up to date.

 

From: Roy Johnson <Roy@mantex.co.uk>

If you write using a word-processor, you may have noticed something rather odd. You can create a perfect document, check the spelling, and even check the grammar – but when you come to print out the document you notice things which you missed on screen.

These might be mistakes, or they might just be points of style or emphasis you want to change. If it’s a long document, you’ll feel like kicking yourself and you might feel guilty about all the paper you’re wasting.

For many writers, editing work on screen and on paper appear to be two different things. Why is this?

Maybe writers are reluctant to edit their work when it is in the ultimate form it will assume prior to being published. But perhaps not when it is still in its penultimate form?

That is, if my electronic text, on disk, is destined to become a printed book, I am reluctant to change the contents of the disk on which I have worked for hours and hours.

However, when I print out the pages, they seem to me a penultimate version which can still be chopped around with impunity.

This seems puzzling. Does anybody have the same experience, or observations on what’s happening?

================================

From: Jane Dorner <Jane@editor.net>

my theory is that you edit and edit on screen and the printout (long works) *becomes* the penultimate version that gets the final tweaks because it looks different.

I’m just editing a 200-page document and am extremely unwilling to print it out more than once for final tweaks. Its also far easier to edit for consistency using search & replace with the full document in memory.

======================================

From: Janet Atkinson-Grosjean <janag@whidbey.whidbey.com>

a laser printed page looks so *finished-product-ish*, I was trying to make the writing perfect, before it ever hit the page. Not surprisingly, my writing became constipated, for lack of a better word. I was on-screen editing instead of writing/drafting, because, in my mind, I wasn’t allowed to edit laser-printed copy because it was *finished.*

After driving myself nuts for a while, I decided to print all drafts in the yukkiest-looking Courier typeface I could find. This works. It tricks me enough. Only the ultimate, finished product uses a different font.

==================================

From: Austin Meredith <rchow@benfranklin.hnet.uci.edu>

the WYSIWIG technology is not adequately advanced at this point. Even in the very best of the current technology … the display of the material on the screen and the printing of the material across the printer does not result in precisely the same level of clarity.

my reluctance to edit heavily on phototypesetter page proofs can entirely be accounted for by the hard and unpleasant fact that the publisher is going to charge me money for each change I make which is not the publisher’s fault, and deduct that amount unilaterally from my royalty checks later!

I am editing on the screen _and_ on paper. Despite the excellence of my equipment, my print display is still superior to my screen display. But there are types of editing which are better done on screen. Spell-checking is an obvious instance of this, but there are other types of editing which are better done on screen.

==============================

From: Rich Berman <rich@interport.net>

I see things like puncutation and misspellings more easily in hard copy, but also sentence structure. Things like too many short sentences together, or too many compounds etc. I also find them easier to correct in hard copy, with pen and paper.

Is it possible that this is because with hard copy you can compare new with old. When you make a correction on the screen, you see only the new. When on hard copy on the other hand, both are there, the original typed, and the new in pen and ink, (and somewhat in the imagination.)

certain media allow us to see some things more clearly than others, although I have read advice to writers that suggested that saving all the material that we cut helps us experience it as not lost, and therefor feel no sense of loss. That might support your idea, Roy.

==============================

From: <Robert_P_KOLKER@umail.umd.edu>

Ive had similar experiences as Roy Johnson of written text on and off the page. Ive done a number of books which Ive edited entirely on screen, and which looked just fine when they got to print. However, in the instances when I do print out a text to edit, I see things–nuances of word patterns, mostly–that I miss on the screen. Whats happening I think, is a holdover from pre-computer days (yes, I’m a middle-aged early adopter, or is it adapter?). I still find the printed word of a different texture than the word on CRT. I find this neither good nor bad. While I cannot read large amounts of text on the screen, I can write them. And edit them. A different kind of fine tuning comes when I hold the words in my hand.

==================

From: Eric Johnson <johnsone@dsuvax.dsu.edu>

I write and edit on a computer screen, but when I think the document is in final form and print it, I want to make more revisions. The reason may simply be that it is much easier to see more of the document at one time when it is printed on paper.

Now, as graphic word processors attempt to present on the screen what will be printed (WYSIWYG), we may end up doing more — not less — editing on paper since a monitor that displays WYSIWYG type in reasonable size often cannot display a whole line at one time.

Regardless of whether WYSIWYG word processing will result in more editing on paper, it may be a step backward for careful writers: good writers want to focus on the words, the language, but WYSIWYG forces writers to pay more attention to the appearance of the letters and lines (not to mention the temptation the tool bars offer of fooling around with fonts, etc.)

========================

From: “R. Allan Reese” <R.A.Reese@gri.hull.ac.uk>

I agree with other contributors that, despite twenty years of writing on screens (yes, honest, I was using a single-user mini-computer in the mid 70s and previously used a mainframe editor), I still have to at some stage revise on a print-out. I suggest that having a small window on the screen tends to make one focus on micro-revision – getting the words right in each sentence. I can also read through and consider the linear logic on screen. However, with the print out I will look backwards and forwards, review the overall structure, and the “feel”. Since the “reader” will usually be given a paper copy, I need to see the same.

What I would say is that the number of printed-out drafts is considerably reduced, and the marks made on the paper copy are either minor points of appearance or notes to prompt major revisions. I do almost all my “writing” on a screen – as I’m doing at this instant.

===========================

From: Christopher G. Fox <cfox@unix.cc.emory.edu>

I don’t think we should neglect the brute, ergonomic factors here as well. My eyes may be somewhat over-sensitive to this kind of problem, but I simply cannot stare at the screen with the kind of intensity I need for visually editing a document. All of the possible combinations of backlighting, glare reduction, etc. don’t change the fact that its still a VDT I’m looking at. As LCD displays become more prevalent and more sophisticated, a fully on-screen writing process will most likely become more prevalent, but I don’t think the current state of interface technology (video display, keyboard, mouse) is quite up to the task. Although I do compose and do preliminary editing on screen I inevitably need to print out in order to make typos visible and and to notice more large scale grammatical and rhetorical mistakes/changes.

=================================

From: Mike Sharples <mike@cogs.susx.ac.uk>

For me, whether or not I edit on screen or on paper is not just a matter of choice – I seem to catch different errors and problems in the two media. On paper, not surprisingly, I get a better overview of a large document – its structure and narrative flow. I also seem to be able to spot niggly errors, such as repeated words, better on paper. On screen I can often read text more rapidly (by scrolling it past me) to scan for gist. &&

=================================

From: Barbara Diederichs <bdiederi@artsci.wustl.edu>

Electronic word processing tools and of course hypertext facilitate a way of writing that is not very concerned with linear structures. When I write a paper using the computer, I start with a handwritten outline and within that framework put down mythoughts and research results as more or less independent pieces and with little regard to logical order. I superimpose that in the printout, which in a way allows to combine the particularities of both media.

I am wondering, though, if the necessity to eventually cast (almost everything we want to say in the traditional paper form, cuts us off from a form of creativity that might become accessible in the electronic medium. The fragmented and associative way of not only expressing oneself, but thinking, that the electronic medium allows for, might open new directions for scholarship.

An example might be the idea of an ‘ultimate’ or ‘penultimate’ version that Roy Johnson mentions in the above quote: the openness of electronic systems that Landow (‘Hypertext. The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology’ 1992) claims as ‘a revolution in human thought’, abandons the very concept of final versions. What would that allow for in scholarship? Maybe bold hypotheses that would provoke dialogue, tests, verification or dismissal rather than having to be ‘right’. Coming straight to the point, rather than justifying the path from one point to another. Giving details that would be uneconomical in the printed medium but might help us develop the collective intelligence of the ‘giant compound’ that David Megginson mentions. Etc.

Has any of you written research in hypertext format? Would you accept a dissertation written in hypertext?

===============================

From: Jerome J. Mc Gann <jjm2f@lizzie.engl.virginia.edu>

1. ANY scholarly-critical edition is ‘research in hypertext format’. and here one wants to remind everyone that ‘research’ etc., and litcrit, is hardly confined to the setpiece essay — indeed, that form is one of the most constricting and restrictive we have evolved. not to make advertisements for myself, i would still suggest that the implicit and often explicit subject of both _The Textual Condition_ and _Black Riders. The Visible Language of Modernism_ is ‘hypertext’ (see in the latter the ‘Dialogue on Dialogue’ in particular).

2. look at the back issues of postmodern culture, especially the last couple (http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/pmc/contents.all.html).

3. look at the ‘general publications’ of UVAs institute for advanced technology in the humanities

(http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/generalpubs.html).

4. finally, look at various online homepages for courses. aren’t courses ‘research projects’ (in my experience, courses are scenes where _everyone_ learns; ‘teaching’ is a topdown model of learning ive never been able to find very attractive. or much help.

=================================

From: ‘J. A. Holmes’ <starfyr@access.digex.net>

I find I still do a lot of editing on paper (for text or code) because watching the screen is not easy on my eyes. Initial creation I do lots of moving stuff around, but when I think Im getting close to done the need/desire to linger over each piece (keep/throw away/modify) while deciding its fate just has me staring too intently at the screen. Also Ive not ever used a editor with markup capability. I can make the changes or just move along. When doing an edit, particularly the final, (or hopefully final) version, I just want to mark problem spots/changes. If I actually stop to make the changes I lose the thread, and cant properly deal with how the local changes affect the document as a whole.

In a similar vein, the trend towards online documentation for programmers is beginning to be a problem to me, I just cant read 400+ pages onscreen.

===============================

From: Patrick TJ McPhee <ptjm@io.org>

For what they’re worth, here are a few thoughts.

1. its (measurably) easier to read text printed at even low (300dpi) resolutions than current screen resolutions

2. a paper version of a document displays more of the document at a time than an on-line version, even if you have a big monitor

3. you think differently with a pen in your hand.

These aside, I agree with you that its easier to make a change to a copy of a document than it is to the master. When you go back to change the original, you can rethink the changes you write on the paper, which effectively gives you two revisions for the effort of one. Its nice to keep an RCS copy of the document, so you can always go back to an earlier version if you change your mind.

=====================================

From: ‘J. Hartley’ <psa04@cc.keele.ac.uk>

1. Familiarity with the genre is important as well as length. Well practiced skills will require less editing. I write long letters, but rarely edit them – so who the text is for is important too.

2. The method one is using plays a part. I dont edit much on e-mail, as readers will discover if they read on, no doubt.

3. I used to write by hand and my secretary word-processed the script. I then copiously edited her paper versions. I now do all (well nearly all) my writing by machine. I now do a lot more editing on screen before making a print out – which I then edit by hand. For much the same reasons as other have expressed.

However, if I am starting an article I sometimes like to rough it out, and then print it out to see how it is shaping up. I then try and do as much as I can on screen, and then print out. But I always regard the print out as a cue to further editing by hand. Until I force myself to stop.

4. I wonder if people who write differently, edit differently? Do the planners, who think first and then write, with little corrections, do less editing than the thinkers who edit as they go along. Obviously they do, but I wonder how they balance screen and paper editing in each case?

5. The editing one does may vary if one is _co-authoring_. Here, how much use of screen and paper editing may depend on whether one is the main, equal or subordinate author? Currently with my research assistant, I often print out a paper version for him to read. I do not give him my disc. When he writes something for me to check, he hands me his disc as well. So I edit his text on screen, and he edits mine on paper! If I were co-authoring with another colleague in a different department I suspect we would both use screens.

6. I find screen editing good for re-jigging old articles for a fresh audience. One can scissors and paste away. But I then like to see the result on paper, and I then edit it with the fresh perspective of the new audience in mind.

7. I always find it helpful to leave something, and then come back to it to edit it. I find this with both paper and screen – but am inclined to make bigger changes when dealing with paper versions.

====================================

From: AM DUDLEY-EVANS <DUDLEYAM@novell1.bham.ac.uk>

But it has always seemed to me that there are two kinds of writer, the one who composes by getting down the ideas as quickly as possible without worrying too much about accuracy, coherence etc. This is followed by the crafting stage, in which it is all tidied up, made coherent etc. The second kind of writer seems to enjoy crafting as s/he writes and does the polishing along with the composing. I suspect that the former type of writer is more common, but I know of at least one of my colleagues who fits into the second category.

But I wonder how the second kind of writer writes with the word-processor. Does s/he craft on the screen?

==============================

From: Judy Madnick <judy.madnick@accessnt.com>

I currently edit court transcripts on-screen. I also have edited manuscripts on-screen. I must admit that its very easy to miss things, probably because our reading methods on-screen are not the same as those off-screen. Ive learned to force myself to slow down (which seems to be the big issue) and almost say the words to myself. (Remember how our teachers told us not to move our lips? Well, they wouldnt want to be watching me proof on-screen!)

So . . . yes, for many people seeing their work on paper seems to result in additional editing; however, I do believe that with careful analysis of the methods being used on-screen, editing CAN be done successfully either way.

=============================

From: Ellen Kessler <etk@panix.com>

Ive been a writer/editor for almost 30 years, and I have noticed a few curious and inexplicable things:

1. The way a piece looks affects the way it is read. I often think that Ive finished editing something in manuscript, for instance, only to see the typeset galleys and shudder. Ive never understood this phenomenon, but now that I think about it, I believe that when I read something back, I read it as a reader not the author, and react to it as new material, which, of course, I must improve. I also think it has something to do with the way the brain processes visual information.

I can work for a long time on my computer, but when I have various versions and want to compare them, I often print them out. I save discarded text at the bottom of the file, in case I want to use it later. Eventually, I always print the stuff out and read it away from my computer. I think a bit of distance, in the forms of time and space, are helpful. I believe everything I write can be better edited the day after I write it.

===============================

From Clare Macdonald <mead@nada.kth.se>

For me, a lot of the pleasure of revising on a printed copy comes from the fact that the text stays put. This creates an additional context(location on the page) that I can use to mentally navigate.

When working with a long document, remembering where on the page (and on which page) a particular passage is can help me locate it quickly. I could probably find it even faster by searching for the phrase with my word processor, but then I’d lose something of my mental image of the structure of the document – or at least my working memory would start to feel seriously overloaded. I’d probably get several matches for my search and have to spend some mental resources considering each and rejecting the ones I don’t want. With a printout, I don’t have to bother with instances that occur early in the text if I know that what I’m interested in is part of the Conclusion – just scan the last few pages.

Of course, each time I print the revised document the location of the text changes, so perhaps this is part of the reason I’ll notice different problems in different versions – the location-context supports slightly different comparisons.

========================

From Carol Buchanan <buchanan@sprynet.com>

I work as a technical writer, in the area of cabin electronics and computer systems, for the Boeing Company. (I also have a PhD in English.) Although my writing skills are excellent, I cannot edit my own work. I see what I expect to see. I find I cannot do without the help of an editor who scrutinizes the manuals for everything from grammar, punctuation, and spelling to format and logic. She edits online, and I make corrections online, but for really knowing what the document’s pages look like and for catching more errors, she prints every draft and subjects it to another scrutiny. Then, after we think we’ve got it right, we pass it to a proofreader who reads it closely on paper and catches still more errors.

The same thing occurs with the books I’ve written. I write the book online, print it, read it, fix the problems I see, and print the final copy which I send, along with the diskette, to the publisher. The editor there edits the typescript, then returns it for correction. I make the corrections, and back it goes. The editor sends the book to a copyeditor, who has other questions and sees other problems, which I respond to and return the typescript and diskette. Then the typesetter sets the book in final pages, which I read through for the last time while the proofreader reads the paper copy. Invariably, I find more mistakes. This time I do not make corrections in the files, but on the paper.

I offer this lengthy description of what happens in corporate technical editing and in commercial publishing in support of two points:

  1. For some reason, we do not see quite the same online and on paper.It would take an expert in perception to explain it. I can’t.
  2. To do a professional job of bringing writing to publication, several people have to collaborate in a team, each with his or her own skills. Even after that, mistakes will still occur.

© Roy Johnson 2009

More on writing skills
More on creative writing
More on grammar

Get in touch

info@mantex.co.uk

Content © Mantex 2016