Writing Programs and the English Department

A couple of years ago John Gerber, in an article in the ADE Bulletin, urged a broadened definition of 'literacy,' one that would encompass all study relating to linguistic artifacts, from the most elementary reading and writing to the most differentiated scholarship and composing. Nearly all college English departments do include much of this broad range, but the inclusion is rarely an integration. Instead, there's the English major and the freshman composition program and the creative-writing courses and, sometimes, the courses for nonmajors: film, popular culture, folklore; business and technical writing; and so forth. In large departments different faculty members may specialize in one or another of these units, and the chairman, who is supposed to be running the whole six-ring circus, can scarcely get the different sorts to talk to one another. What integration occurs begins and ends with the yearly departmental cocktail party.

Johnson, Paula. ADE Bulletin (1979). Articles>Editing>Writing>Collaboration

Writing Shorter Manuals  

Large manuals are expensive to write, produce, and ship, and may make a product seem mare diflcult or complex than it really is. Shorter manuals can decrease telephone support calls, provide a challenge to the writer, and save time and money. With careful planning and preparation, diJjCerent writing and design techniques, and participation in product design, writers can shorten manuals and make users more willing to read them.

Sommerville, Heather M. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Documentation>Editing>Writing

Writing, Editing and Designing: a Unified Process

What's in it for me? That's what magazine readers must see at first glance, or they will flip on by. Winning their attention requires thoughtful blending of words and design from the beginning of the publication process.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Writing>Editing>Visual Rhetoric

You Lost Me in the Third Paragraph: A Guide to Gracious Criticism

When a colleague comes to you for criticism, for help, for feedback, you are not helping that colleague if you say, 'Looks okay to me.' An important skill in college and in the work force is that of giving solid, instructive criticism. This handout is designed to teach you this skill.

George Mason University. Articles>Editing>Collaboration

Письма в Редакцию в Английской Газете: Анализ Аргументации

Предметом данного исследования является анализ построения аргументации в функциональном газетном стиле речи (в рубрике Letters to the Editor). Целью исследования является изучение функционирования аргументации в функциональном газетном стиле и выявление взаимовлияния логического и языкового аспекта аргументации.

Golubev, V.U. and K.V. Gudkova. Argumentation (2002). (Russian) Articles>Rhetoric>Editing

Jabberwock

Technical editors are constantly required to edit and revise pieces that they don’t fully understand - or even have much information about. That’s part of the game.

Schwarcz, Mati. Art of Technical Communication, The (2008). Articles>Editing>Technical Editing

Inspiring Reviewers to Review Your Documents

To obtain good reviews, you must make the process as painless as possible for reviewers.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. TECHWR-L (2008). Articles>Editing>Collaboration>SMEs

Lost in Translation: Contributions of Editors to the Meanings of Text    

Authors of scientific articles in one language are often required to provide abstracts of their papers in a second language, and they use a variety of ways to achieve this.

Hartley, James, Alan Branthwaite, Frank Ganier and Laurent Heurley. Journal of Information Science (2007). Articles>Language>Editing>Translation

Attaining Review Nirvana with Acrobat 8 Professional

Getting documents reviewed has always been a tricky proposition for writers. From pleading to coercion to bribery just stopping short of third-degree torture, writers have documented many methods for getting reviews done effectively and in time. For those writers who gave up altogether and for those who just did not care too much for reviews, there is bad news coming – companies are asking for user feedback on the content that you wrote. Users, as we know them, can shame the most cynical movie critic when it comes to commenting. In my quest many a tool tried to lure me, but when Acrobat 8 strut its shared review stuff in front of me, I finally succumbed.

Kurnool, Preran. Indus (2008). Articles>Editing>Collaboration>Adobe Acrobat

How to Manage Out of Date Content

Organizations are in urgent need of professional review processes for their intranets and public websites. Out of date content is growing year by year, and there are many horror stories about out-of-date content waiting to happen. It’s time for management to get serious and professionally manage their websites.

McGovern, Gerry. CMSwire (2008). Articles>Content Management>Editing>Assessment

Drawing Hilbert Curves with SVG

Hilbert curves are a type of space-filling curve that can be constructed with the SVG polyline element, using a basic design and then aggregating.

Opera (2008). Articles>Graphic Design>Image Editing>SVG

Quick, Quality Indexing for Environmental, Safety, and Health

Indexing for environmental, safety, and health texts, you provide sure, quick access to critical information in times of need.

Wyman, Pilar. STC Proceedings (2008). Articles>Editing>Indexing>Policies and Procedures

The Under-Appreciated Art of Proofreading

Although I hate to sound like a Luddite, the automatic tools are no guarantee that your document will be error free. Here are a few proofreading tips that may help you eliminate some common errors.

Rosenberg, Nad. TechWRITE (2006). Articles>Editing>Collaboration

How Microsoft Pushed QuickTime's Final Cut

Apple's work to aggressively build upon QuickTime and compete in the market against Microsoft--rather than just handing its technology over and “partnering” with the company--launched Apple ahead and established major new markets for the Mac platform. Final Cut Pro initially established the Mac as an essential tool among editors.

RoughlyDrafted (2007). Articles>Multimedia>Editing>Video

Forty Beautiful Grunge Photoshop Tutorials

In this collection, we present to you 40 excellent, high-quality grunge Photoshop tutorials. So fire up Photoshop and get ready to get your hands… dirty!

Gube, Jacob. Smashing (2008). Articles>Graphic Design>Image Editing>Adobe Photoshop

Appropriate Use of Alternative Text

Adding alternative text for images is the first principle of web accessibility. It is also one of the most difficult to properly implement. The web is replete with images that have missing, incorrect, or poor alternative text. Like many things in web accessibility, determining appropriate, equivalent, alternative text is often a matter of personal interpretation. Through the use of examples, this article will present our experienced interpretation of appropriate use of alternative text.

WebAIM (2005). Articles>Accessibility>Image Editing>Web Design

Relative Sizing and Images

Few people realize that with today's modern browsers, relative sizing can in fact be added to images as well as text elements on your web page. Making the image scale with the text may aid in accessibility, despite the degradation of quality.

WATS.ca (2006). Articles>Web Design>Image Editing>CSS

Crop Images Contextually

Crop images contextually for faster downloads and higher impact. By cropping maximally and resizing you can convey meaning without slowing down your web pages.

Website Optimization (2008). Articles>Graphic Design>Image Editing

Graphic Thoughts: My Top 10 Photoshop Moves, Part 1

Almost every time I speak to an audience about graphics or Photoshop, I’m asked if I went to school to learn what I know about the application. The truth is that while I spent more than 3 years in an Advertising Art degree program, I ultimately switched gears and got a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in marketing (Mom and Dad were thrilled with this news!), and that was in the early ’90s—pretty much in the infant stages of Photoshop.

Gray, Lawrence. Event DV (2008). Articles>Graphic Design>Image Editing>Adobe Photoshop

Graphic Thoughts: Creating Great Backgrounds in A Snap

Recently, I had the chance to go with my in-laws to City Museum in St. Louis. What an amazing place to get lost in by crawling through inventively designed tunnels that go underground to many stories below the city streets. The most impressive thing to me was how the place was constructed—they used everyday items, such as metal storage bins, bottles, and gears (plus what looked like a million other items) to create elaborate mazes of artwork.

Gray, Lawrence. Event DV (2008). Articles>Graphic Design>Image Editing>Adobe Photoshop

Adding High-Impact Filters to Your Titles

Words go so well with video. They can give an emotional punch to a scene or simply announce what is going to happen next. I love using romantic quotes, Bible passages, and other forms of text in my work. The best part is that you can be just as creative with how those words are presented as you are in picking out the text in the first place.

McManus, Joe. Event DV (2008). Articles>Multimedia>Image Editing>Video

Creating Perspective Shadows

Perspective—it’s one of the first things you learn about in any art class. The basic idea is that it’s the way your eye actually sees something, represented on a flat surface such as paper or a monitor. A simple example is drawing a group of objects: You represent an object in the distance by making it smaller, while making objects close to the viewer larger—make sense? In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to create perspective shadows in Adobe Photoshop CS3. The result is dynamic, but the technique is a breeze!

Gray, Lawrence. Event DV (2008). Articles>Graphic Design>Image Editing>Technical Illustration

Off Site Reviews: Six Ways to Exchange Edits

Coordinating a document review can be a tedious process. However, the task is even more difficult when reviewers work in another location and can't quickly exchange comments via paper. Fortunately, technology is presenting writers with new options for handling off-site reviews.

HelpScribe (2009). Articles>Collaboration>Editing>Online

Regular Expressions - a Simple User Guide

There is no gentle beginning to regular expressions. You are either into hieroglyphics big time - in which case you will love this stuff - or you need to use them in which case a headache may be your only reward.

Zytrax (2009). Articles>Editing>Search>Regular Expressions