Semester project assignment

ENG 483, Spring 2008

The final project for Professional Editing is an experiential learning assignment. Following Paul Anderson’s model for service learning, you will work as a professional editor, helping a campus or community organization improve existing documents (or documents which are under development). You will perform all tasks necessary to be a successful editor. I will help you with this endeavor, serving as an adviser, troubleshooter, and “editor-in-chief.”

Overview of project

Find an organization with one large document or several small documents which need editing. Meet and discuss a possible editing project. Inform me of your clients and project selection.
Develop a complete plan for editing the document(s) and present it to your clients as part of a formal proposal. Submit a copy of the proposal to me. Revise the plan based on client feedback.
Edit the document(s), meeting and communicating with your clients as needed. Consult reference books and complete necessary research. Review a draft of your in-process editing with me.
Deliver the final edited document and associated materials to your clients. Submit a project portfolio and reflective report to me.

Project components & schedule

These “milestone” assignments will help me track your progress. I can shift some of these dates to accommodate your schedule, given a written request submitted in advance of the due date. Please feel free to ask me to review your work and help you at any time.

Milestone	Brief description	Points	Due
Client & project selection memo	A memo to me describing your clients and the project you intend to edit.	3/20	25
Proposal & editing plan	A formal proposal which includes an editing plan.	4/01	50
Project draft	A draft of the edited document, hopefully complete, which we can use to review your editing procedures and propose correctives, if needed.	4/15	75
Final edited document	The final document, including marked up copy, style sheets, editorial queries, other editing materials, and a letter of transmittal. (Deliver to the client.)	5/01	150
Project portfolio	A portfolio which includes all the project assignments submitted to date, a copy of the materials delivered to the client, and a brief reflective report. (Deliver to me.)	5/08	50
Project total			350

Detailed component descriptions & assessment

Some of the documents named above need no additional description. You can produce the forms required by following the suggestions in our textbooks.

I will assess the proposal & editing plan, final edited project, and final project portfolio with the help of an evaluation completed by your clients.

Client & project selection memo

Write a memo to me which describes the following:

Your clients, including full contact information (names, addresses, emails, phone numbers—as much as you can provide).
The document(s) you intend to edit, and your reason for selecting those document(s).
The level(s) of edit you anticipate (medium, heavy, or substantive), and why.
Any materials you expect to produce to support your editing—style sheets, etc.

There is no formal assessment rubric for this memo. Just be as complete and detailed as possible.

Proposal & editing plan

The proposal and editing plan should be addressed and delivered to your clients; provide a copy to me. (For me, also include a copy of the document(s) you intend to edit.) The proposal will describe the editing process you intend to engage, a tentative schedule, and the outcomes you anticipate. It should provide your clients a complete understanding of what you expect of them, and the product you intend to deliver. Be informative but only as long as necessary. I will post a handout on editing plans which includes formal guidelines. The Anderson selection in the course pack provides another model.

Area evaluated	Best (A or B)	Fair (C or D)	Poor (F)
Proposal informativeness	Excellent information about project management, contact information, and other details included	One or two sections are not fully developed, and the client will need to contact you to resolve some questions	Information sorely lacking, leaving questions about major areas of the project
Editing plan clarity & presentation	Describes and explains the editing process you envision in detail, establishing clear goals for editing	Editing process and/or goals are clearly established, but some conflicts or inconsistencies need attention	Editing plan is not clear, and the goals for editing not well defined or poorly explained
Editing plan completeness & suitability	All components of the document are addressed, and the plan established matches the documents to be edited	Editing plan does not address the entire editing situation fully, and/or has portions which are not well developed	Editing plan is incomplete in more than one way, and/or does not seem well-suited to the document presented
General presentation	Well-organized and presented—a document which makes you look like a pro	A few problems with presentation, but overall the impression is positive	Problems with formatting or appearance; generally looks unprofessional or sloppy

Project draft

Turn in a document with a substantial amount of completed editing and come to a conference ready to discuss the project status. Your draft should show evidence of a methodical approach which ensures accurate, complete editing. I encourage you to submit style sheets or other materials you are preparing for your clients, such as your letter of transmittal, at this time.

You will be assessed on two factors: (1) the amount of progress you demonstrate—I expect more than half of the editing to be done; (2) level of preparation for our conference—come to my office ready to discuss your project and spend a productive half-hour discussing your editing progress and any problems with me.

You will not be assessed on your quality of editing, with one exception: if you repeat mistakes made in your vulture portfolio editing.

Final edited document

The final edited document delivered to your clients should include materials which help them apply your editing to their writing project—a copy of editors’ marks, bubble queries, style sheets, and other materials. A letter of transmittal should introduce the document and wrap up the project. I will provide examples of this form.

Area evaluated	Best (A or B)	Fair (C or D)	Poor (F)
Thoroughness in editing	One or fewer minor problems which should be addressed are not corrected	Several minor or one major problem remain which should be addressed	Numerous serious problems remain in document
Editing marks and queries	Conventional editing marks used; queries are polite, informative, and consistent	Editing marks sometimes irregular or illegible; a few queries seem rude, or are hard to understand	Editing marks often hard to follow; queries aren’t well-differentiated, are poorly stated, or are too aggressive
Accuracy in editing; respect for style	No errors introduced by editing; style and content are altered only if absolutely necessary	Some errors introduced; style or content are affected in minor ways, or strongly in a few places	Editing introduces several new errors; style of author unnecessarily affected
Letter of transmittal: content	Letter impressively sets the stage for reading the final document, providing good context for the edited product	Questions remain after reading the letter; some content which should be included is omitted in whole or part	Letter adds little to delivery; information is incomplete or incorrect; tone doesn’t compliment the work of editing
Letter of transmittal: presentation	Letter is professional, using standard business letter format	A few mistakes detract from the professional appearance of the letter	Letter contains misspellings, is poorly formatted, or otherwise appears unprofessional
Overall quality of information provided	Package provides clients all they need to move forward with project	Some problems or handoff which doesn’t set the stage for future projects very well	Serious questions remain about procedure for implementation, or future of project

Final portfolio

Deliver the final edited document and associated materials to me in a portfolio of some kind, with a table of contents and organization which clearly indicates the components indicated:

The document(s) in original condition, before you started editing.
The editing plan/proposal you wrote for the client, with any changes made during the process indicated.
Any drafts which I reviewed.
The letter of transmittal which accompanied the final document (see below).
A copy of the final document(s), with your editing marks and other corrections and suggestions, as delivered to the client.
Representative communication between you and the client (emails, notes from your meetings, etc).
A brief report which reflects on the editing experience (see below).

Area evaluated	Best (A or B)	Fair (C or D)	Poor (F)
Client communication	Polite, clear, and businesslike prose which makes requests or asks questions effectively	For the most part, effective and well-toned, but a few errors which detract from appearance or raise questions	Serious problems with presentation or politeness; general lack of purpose
Reflective report: information	Good descriptions of editing experience and complete client evaluation; rich in detail	Lack of detail—too many generalizations, or too much left to reader imagination	Little information included; more of a dry run at requirements—a hasty recap
Reflective report: commentary	Honest commentary on the project; evidence of reflection about editing and management methodology	Some reflection included, but careful consideration of the editing process is limited or weakened by lack of detail	Commentary doesn’t really show introspection, careful consideration, or desire to learn from the experience
Professional appearance	Well-organized and presented—a document which makes you look like a pro	A few problems with presentation, but overall the impression is positive	Problems with formatting or appearance; generally looks unprofessional or sloppy

Reflective report

This is a brief text addressed to me, and me only, which reflects on the service learning project and the success of your engagement with your clients. The more detail you provide, the better. At a minimum, I expect you to cover the following:

A quick recap of the most important experiences you had while completing the assignment.
An evaluation of your clients—were they helpful to you? Did they respond to your requests for more information with reasonable speed? Did they offer any insight or assistance which was extremely useful? Did they support the service-learning experience?
An evaluation of yourself—in what areas did you really excel? What things will you do differently on your next editing project? What things will you do in the same way?

Tips

Start this assignment early and work on it a little at a time.
Your minimum content should be 40 pages for a medium edit, or 20 pages for a substantive edit. Find more material to edit if your document is composed with a lot of whitespace. If your document contains numerous graphs other editing-intensive content, less material could suffice. See me if you have questions.
When you meet with a (prospective) client, dress professionally. You don’t have to wear a suit to meetings—but it’s a darned good idea.
If you are working with a large organization, ask one person to be your client representative. Work directly with that person as much as possible—be polite, but defer attempts to give you instructions from other folks to your contact.
Make copies like mad—don’t mark up the only copy of a document you have. (I harped on this for the vulture portfolios, but some folks still made this error.) If you get documents on disk, make backups. Then back up your backups.
I have designed this project with individual work in mind. I’m willing to allow small teams of students to work together, if I feel it will enhance your editing work. If you want to collaborate, see me as soon as possible.
If you have questions about a document not answered by our textbooks or library research, I have reference books which might be able to help.