The longer I work here, the easier it is for me to decide what is the most important part, piece or ingredient of a document. It becomes more clear to me who I can ask for help and who to go to get answers in order to get the job done. The very first thing I will always do when a document is passed to tech writing (TW) is merge the templates. I will do this regardless of the amount of time I have, the state of the document, or who it is being delivered to. The only exception (currently) is if the delivery is meeting minutes which are simply made to look like the last week's delivery. These are informal and not templated.
Once a new document is in the template it will need cleaned up because merging templates never works properly. This step can take anywhere from an hour to six hours. The more people who have worked on a document, the more cutting, copying and pasting, individual spacing and weird indentations that have gone on, the longer it will take for me to do my job. I personally find that getting a document into a uniformed, clean, professional "template" is one of the most important parts of my job. But while I am working on formatting, I must keep several other things in mind:
- Time for TW: how long do I have for this document? If I only have a few hours to tech write it then I need to complete major formatting (correct headings and table captions so the TOC will be in place correctly) all while reading the doc at the same time.
- Time for QA: after TW is finished with the doc, it goes to Quality Assurance. QA is responsible for making sure the document addresses all of the peer review comments and/or customer comments.
- Content: is the content complete? In my editing, am I being careful not to change the content? In technical writing there are times when you have to give up your need to mark-up a document that is written poorly to save the content.
- Time altogether: factoring together time for everything to be done to the document, all changes to be made as well as the delivery to the customer (done online but still can take up to 20 minutes)
- I worked on a document Friday and Saturday which was an updated version of a fairly outdated plan. The content had been updated in places, certain diagrams replaced, deletions were made and sections rewritten. The document was sent to TW around 3pm Friday. It was due NLT 2pm today (Monday). It was requested by the author that the doc be finished with TW by COB Friday or midday Saturday so we could give QA as much time as possible with it. The content was not totally complete and some sections may have needed reworked. I decided not to begin so late on a Friday and came in Saturday morning. I spent several hours Saturday and got it in good working shape. Working over the weekend allowed me to focus on smaller things and make the document look nicer. This plan had had many revisions and, well the formatting was a little messy. I made many changes and submitted back into our system. Monday (today) I came back in and worked for several more hours addressing changes the author had in content, more formatting as a result of shifting paragraphs and sections and updates in tables. I felt because I came in and completed a thorough tech edit over the weekend I had time to pay more attention to content and grammar changes as opposed to rushing through the document. It went to QA around 10am with 70 some items (comments) needing to be addressed. When those came back to me, final changes were made and it went out on time. This was an effective delivery because everyone involved worked together and on schedule. The author had the document to TW and QA in the time frame that is outlined in our policies (2 days) which allows for on-time deliveries. I don't think anyone felt rushed or much was compromised as a result.
- For the past two weeks I have been focused on several Install Plans, which have worked quite the opposite of my docs this weekend. These plans have been very rushed and somewhat chaotic. The Installs were brand new and consisted of many charts, tables and diagrams all being created/designed specifically for this purpose. The timetable for the documents was not communicated accurately or at least not followed well by all participating members of the document. With both installs I focused more on layout than verbiage. My rationale behind that was an install plan is a plan. The text was simple enough and the diagrams were there to display and to show the customer what we were going to do. With a 40 page document and complex diagrams such as the ones included, I felt visual design was more important that perfect grammar. This particular document was not complex or rich in content; it was on a very basic level and if the peer review and customer comments were addressed I was satisfied provided we could get it out the door on-time.
3 comments:
It does become easier the more you practice and speak with those in charge. I have found the more time I spend revising my roughs with the publisher, the more beneficial feedbacl I obtain to improve my story. We get stuck with other interns to provide feedback, which usually the publisher overides, so I have learned to hold off on any changes until she says so. It had been interesting, but I am glad for the challenge. Unfortunately, with my fall schedule and regular work, I'll be unable to accept the freelance position she has offered me. Hope you are finding great advancements with your internship!
Wow, that sounds like a lot of information to deal with in a short period of time. I think it's interesting and really perceptive that you've become able to decipher which editing you should focus most on--grammatical, content, layout and so forth. Sometimes sifting through that part or at least stepping back and doing one at a time helps ease the stress. I just might try to employ that strategy in the things that I do.
I second Gwen's comment here -- you make an important move in your writing/editing process when you take the time to assess the entire situation before deciding how you're going to focus your energy and attention.
Good work, too, in providing some detailed descriptions of projects you're working on -- you'll want to incorporate those types of detailed descriptions and analysis into your final reflective essay.
I was particularly interested in this sentence from your post: "QA is responsible for making sure the document addresses all of the peer review comments and/or customer comments." Could you describe this peer review process in more detail? What types of comments tend to be made? By whom? How, specifically, are these comments communicated (e.g., marginal notes made through the "Comment" function, some other type of markup tool, separate document with an itemized list). What types of rhetorical decision-making does the person making the revisions have to do in order to address the questions effectively and have the document meets its purpose? How does the person doing the revising communicate final decisions that did not follow the comments to a "T"?
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