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This project was given to me mid-stream, so unfortunately, several authors
have written content with no outline in place. I've since created an outline
and am now moving books or topics around. That is why I ask how to show
developmental edits for Online Help. I've already developed some guidelines
for the team on writing content, but I still need to develop a template to
supplement the style guide we're using.
-----Original Message-----
From: Geoff Hart [mailto:ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca]
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 12:07 PM
To: TECHWR-L; Ben
Subject: Online Help Editors? (take II)
Ben wondered: <<I would appreciate if you'd be so kind as to give
your insight on developmental editing for Online Help, for example,
re-organizing topics and books in a Help project. I'm thinking about
sending a revised outline of their Help Contents in MS Word so the
authors can compare against their original Help project.>>
Strictly speaking, developmental editing should occur before anyone
actually begins writing. In a way, you can think of this as a form of
prototyping in which you do most of the design work up front, then
test the resulting design to ensure that it's effective. (Don't you
wish they designed software that way?) For some thoughts on this: http://www.geoff-hart.com/resources/2006/prototype.htm http://www.geoff-hart.com/resources/2006/outlining.htm
It's also helpful to combine developmental and substantive editing at
the start of any project. In effect, once you've got a kick-ass
outline in place, you then try writing an actual topic that fits
within the outline, and beat hell out of that topic until everyone is
basically satisfied that it's the best approach you can come up with.
Then you standardize on that approach. What this accomplishes is that
you solve as many problems as possible right from the start, then
avoid creating those problems from that point onwards. Compare this
with the joy of fixing each problem 1000 times because it reoccurs in
each of the 1000 help topics in a large project and the saving is
obvious!
Of course, more realistically, you can solve only some of the
repeating problems, and have to invent solutions to new ones as you
encounter them. In addition, some authors will do a better job than
others of internalizing this aproach and writing well without
creating the same problems in each help topic. This suggests that
some iteration and continuous improvement will be necessary. Creating
a strong style guide that is easy for authors to use and that is
supported by good templates and other tools can help greatly. For
some thoughts on how to make such a style guide: http://www.geoff-hart.com/resources/2000/dynamicstyle.htm
----------------------------------------------------
-- Geoff Hart
ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca / geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com
www.geoff-hart.com
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