#14280
A document’'s format leads readers to expect certain types of information. A memo format suggests something different from a newspaper column. Your task as a workplace professional is to meet the reader’s expectations by presenting information that readers need in an appropriate format. This computer file contains the description of a golf ball, written by a student who is an avid golfer. You can edit and format this description (or a selected portion of it) for a specific audience.
Burnett, Rebecca E. Thomson (2001). Academic>Course Materials>Editing
#29951
Interactive Editing and Revision Exercises
These example exercises are intended to help you better understand how to write paragraphs according to the five patterns of organization listed above. Each example exercise is followed by an assignment that asks you to use the example exercises and the textbook as a guide in writing paragraphs that are clear and well organized.
Dobrin, Sidney I., Christopher J. Keller and Christian R. Weisser. TCTC. Academic>Course Materials>Editing
#14278
Just as Socrates said, ‘Every discourse must be organized, like a living being . . .,’ a document must be organized in a logical, coherent fashion, with its parts ‘composed in fitting relation to each other and to the whole.’ Although research has led to more sophisticated guidelines for creating reader-based documents, Socrates’ principles are still valuable. Writing organized, coherent documents is still a primary goal for technical writers—one you should follow as you develop your professional writing style. This file contains text about the refining, bleaching, and deodorizing processes of sunflowerseed oil. Your task is to make this text more organized and coherent so that readers will understand the process.
Burnett, Rebecca E. Thomson (2001). Academic>Course Materials>Editing
#14600
The purpose of the peer review is twofold: First, the suggestions you give to your peers should help them revise their papers. Second, carefully reading others' work should help you better reevaluate your own writing.
Charney, Davida. University of Texas. Academic>Course Materials>Editing
#14281
One of the best ways to practice writing memos, of course, is to get a job and write lots of memos to actual audiences, but practicing can certainly help. This computer file contains a memo that needs to be revised. In the current version, the main points are difficult to locate, and the supporting details aren’t well organized. You will work to improve this memo to make it work more effectively with its audience.
Burnett, Rebecca E. Thomson (2001). Academic>Course Materials>Editing
#14267
Revising Documents for Different Audiences 
In the most effective documents, the data is presented in the way most appropriate for the readers. It matches their expectations for the document, their purposes for reading, and their level of technical expertise. When professionals create documents, they must be mainly concerned with the primary reader. To ensure that you are thinking about your readers, it is often useful to create a reader profile, identifying their key characteristics. This profile allows you to shape the material into a more reader-friendly document. During this exercise, you are going to create an information sheet about melanoma. This exercise has two major stages. First you will complete an audience analysis worksheet by answering questions about your primary audience. Then you will revise text about melanoma of the skin, creating a one-page information sheet that could be distributed to students at a campus science exhibition.
Burnett, Rebecca E. Thomson (2001). Academic>Course Materials>Editing
#20511
These documents are suitable for take-home, graded assignments or in-class workshops. As whole documents created in the 'real world,' they complement the sentence- and paragraph-level editing tasks in the textbook Technical Editing.
Rude, Carolyn D. Allyn and Bacon (1998). Academic>Course Materials>Editing
#22188
Technical Editing: Discussion and Application Materials
Assignments to complement Carolyn Rude's Technical Editing textbook. Instructors can load the materials onto a server or student disks so that the students can respond at the computer.
Rude, Carolyn D. Allyn and Bacon (1998). Academic>Course Materials>Technical Editing
#14283
Probably the most common type of document testing in the workplace is text-based. Text-based testing is common because it’s cheap and easy—with current word processors, running a test is as simple as selecting “Grammar” from the “Tools” menu in Microsoft Word or WordPerfect (6.0 or later). Text-based testing is very efficient at catching spelling errors (although it doesn’t catch homonyms, like accidentally substituting “threw” for “through”) and some grammatical mistakes. However, such testing doesn’t take into account visuals, forecasting, design, or other elements that have a great deal to do with a document’s usability. For this exercise, you will explore the plusses and minuses of text-based testing by working with a small group of classmates to test and revise a short but complex document. You will then compare your improved document to that of other groups and discuss the value of text-based testing.
Burnett, Rebecca E. Thomson (2001). Academic>Course Materials>Editing>Assessment
