Brooklyn College TW108 Technical Editing: Schedule

TW108: Technical Editing
Schedule Page

Although most of the links have been removed, the following course schedule gives you an idea of what we'll cover in this course. (Remember that this is an 8-week course.) When you are ready, return to the Brooklyn College Technical Writing Certificate Program course listing.

This is your main working page for TW108: Technical Editing in Brooklyn College's Technical Writing Certificate program. Use this page to find out what to name your files, see when projects are due, and go to the online textbook and resources for this course. See the syllabus links following the schedule for information about objectives, required and recommended books, grades, and other resources. (Exact units and sequence of units may vary slightly from instructor to instructor and semester to semester.)

On all quizzes, please select Brooklyn College as instructor.

This course starts mmddyy.

Your instructor is instructor_name at instructor_email.

Click the units you've completed and then press Send at the top or bottom of this page. Remember that this tracking chart is for your convenience; the instructor uses other information to determine whether you've done adequate study to pass this course. If you mistakenly mark a unit as completed, contact your instructor (or just wait until you actually complete it.)

Check	Project (Use these links to see project details.)	Due date	File names/comments	Completed
	Technical editing. Get an overview of the business of technical editing, the different kinds of editing a technical editor does, the place in organizations of the technical editor, and other such.	mmddyy
	Copymarking. In the electronic era copymarking may no longer be as important as it was once. However, it is useful practice for sharpening your editorial eye and for using standard copyediting and proofreading symbols.	mmddyy
	Electronic editing. Learn how to use features of your software to comment on and recommend improvements or corrections to a document as an electronic file rather than on a printout of that document	mmddyy
	Project 1: copymarking. In this first project, you copymark a brief document against a finished copy. If you have problems with this one, you can do additional such projects until you are comfortable with copymarking.	mmddyy
	Copyediting part 1. Get an overview of copyediting, and practice copyediting for consistency, spelling, capitalization, and abbreviations.	mmddyy
	Copyediting part 2. Study and practice copyediting for grammar and usage.	mmddyy
	Copyediting part 3. Study and practice copyediting for punctuation and for quantitative and technical material.	mmddyy
	Proofreading. Study and practice proofreading.	mmddyy
	Stylesheets. Learn how to create a stylesheet to aid in maintaining consistency in a document, and see its relationship to a style guide.	mmddyy
	Project 2: copyediting. In this project, you copyedit a document and develop a stylesheet to accompany it. If you have problems with this one, you can do additional such projects until you are comfortable with copyediting and stylesheets.	mmddyy
	Typemarking and typecodes. Learn how editors "code" the documents they edit so that typesetters know how to format those documents.	mmddyy
	Project 3: copyediting and typemarking. In this project, you copyedit a document and develop a stylesheet to accompany it. In addition, you use a set of formatting codes to indicate how typesetters should format the document. And, as previously, if you have problems with this one, you can do additional such projects until you are comfortable with copyediting and type marking.	mmddyy
	Comprehensive editing part 1. Get an overview of comprehensive editing and study the meaning of the term style and its relation to sentence structures.	mmddyy
	Comprehensive editing part 2. Study how to strengthen verbs and other word choice as well as how to assess organization and visual design in comprehensive editing.	mmddyy
	Comprehensive editing part 3. Complete this tour of comprehensive editing by studying how to edit illustrations and online documents and how to edit within a global context.	mmddyy
	Style guides. Study how to develop a style guide that is easy to use and that enables writers to create reasonably consistent documents.	mmddyy
	Project 4: style guide. Study how to develop a style guide that is easy to use and that enables writers to create reasonably consistent documents, and then get some practice creating one of your own.	mmddyy
	Edit review summary. Study how to write a review summary in letter or memo format that you attach to a completed edit, and get some practice writing one.	mmddyy
	Project 5: comprehensive edit. In this project, you do a comprehensive edit on a document and write and attach an edit review summary to it. If you have problems with this one, you can do additional such projects until you are comfortable with comprehensive editing.	mmddyy
Note: All work in this course must be complete no later than mmddyy.

Syllabus

Objectives

Understand the role of the technical editor in the document-production process.
Understand the different types of edits that a technical editor may do.
Know the documentation process and how the different types of edits fit into it.
Know how to perform copymarking, including how to use the traditional abbreviations and symbols.
Know how to typemark a document (both online and on paper)—how to mark up the document with typecodes that show the typesetter how to format the document.
Know how to do a copyedit—how to spot and correct the full range of copyedit problems.
Know techniques for editing documents electronically.
Know how to do a comprehensive edit—how to review for full range of comprehensive-editing problems.
Understand the usefulness of stylesheets and style guides and how to construct them.
Be able to write a brief edit-review summary, explaining problems and recommending revisions as tactfully as possible.

Books

The following text is required:

Carolyn Rude. Technical Editing. Any recent edition, but let us know which you are using.

The following texts are recommended:

Alred, Brusaw, Oliu. Handbook of Technical Writing. St. Martin's Press. Any recent edition.
Chicago Manual of Style. University of Chicago Press. Any recent edition.

Grades

A: All projects completed and approved by your instructor.
B: All projects completed and approved by your instructor except for approval of the comprehensive edit.
C: All projects completed and approved by your instructor, except for completion and approval of the comprehensive edit.

Resources

Editing resource page. Links, online texts, articles, organizations, and more.
TECHWR-L articles. Lots of articles on all aspects of the field.
Technical Writing, Help Authoring Tools, Jobs, and More. Good general collection of links and articles.
Writers Write. Plenty of good articles!
computerjobs.com: Technical Writer Jobs. Good resource links also.
EServer TC Library. Super collection of links related to all aspects of this field.

Table of contents for the Online Textbook.
Policies for courses in the Brooklyn College Technical Writing Certificate program.
Online Technical Documentation site search facility.

Course Evaluation

Use the course evaluation form to give your opinions on the effectiveness of the study materials and organization of this course. (This evaluation is strictly optional, strictly voluntary.)

Information and programs provided by hcexres@io.com.